


Rate My Professor

by charrrmed



Category: Vampire Diaries (TV)
Genre: F/M, Female Friendship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-11-08
Updated: 2013-01-02
Packaged: 2017-11-18 05:28:43
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 6
Words: 22,966
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/557394
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/charrrmed/pseuds/charrrmed
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>College preparedness includes meeting your professor before the first day of class. A visit to Whitmore leads to Bonnie's first teacher evaluation, Caroline's turn as a mentor, and Elena's first blood high.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> The tweets take place between 4.01 and 4.03.
> 
> *Shane's Twitter handle is a shoutout to two friends who call him Professor Shady. SShane=Shady Shane :).

**Bonnie Bennett**

_@itchnbitch_

Trip 2 Whitmore? #maybe #whitmorecollege

**Bonnie Bennett**

_@itchnbitch_

Okay. Definite trip 2 Whitmore. #changeofscenery #whitmorecollege

**Bonnie Bennett**

_@itchnbitch_

There’s a new prof teachin’ Intro to Occult Studies for anthro :(. He betta b gud. #bigshoes2fill #whitmorecollege

**Bonnie Bennett**

_@itchnbitch_

Sigh. Maybe a trip’s a bad idea. 

**Shane Acciai**

_@SShane_

_@itchnbitch_ I hear he’s pretty good. #whitmorecollege

**Bonnie Bennett**

_@itchnbitch_

_@SShane_ I hope so. Wuldn't want the quality to tank after all these yrs.

Her eyes narrowed to slits, the rest of her face completely unimpressed, Bonnie published the tweet. She didn't know this man. She had looked at his Twitter profile and saw it was indeed the same Shane who had taken over her grandmother's classes. After sending the message, she went back to the school website and read his write-up. She had initially just looked at his picture plus the subject he was teaching and grimaced disapprovingly, in solidarity with her grams.

**Shane Acciai**

_@SShane_

_@itchnbitch_ You seem very invested. Investment is good. Investment means passion and discussion and commitment. Alumni?

Bonnie saw his tweet when she picked up her phone from the kitchen counter. She shifted her weight onto her right foot when she finished reading it. Did he just diss her? Was that sarcasm? He had to know from her picture that she was nowhere near being an alumni. She looked at the sultry girl in the icon at that moment. The girl posing on the empty football field of Mystic Falls high school looked nothing like her. The girl giving the camera her good side was fresh-faced; she looked all of her sixteen years; she looked like school was just another haven; she looked as if no problem she could have could be too much. Because the girl in the picture could never suffer by herself. Elena had taken that picture, Bonnie remembered. The girl in the picture also had her father, her grandmother, Caroline, and Matt.

Bonnie stared at the picture until the image annoyed her. She needed to change it. She had nothing in common with it anymore.

Something else she decided to do was use standard spelling, especially if she was going to continue speaking to this professor. She was applying to Whitmore, after all.

**Bonnie Bennett**

_@itchnbitch_

_@SShane_ No. Legacy, actually. And future student. Who knows that the right degrees and fancy travels doesn't mean that someone actually knows how to teach.

It was a criticism she had heard her grandmother make about her colleagues plenty of times. Bonnie dropped her phone back on the counter, silently daring him to answer.

***

Shane read the reply ten minutes before he had to leave his office for the lecture hall. He drew out a surprised, "Wow," and chuckled, officially amused. This conversation might have merit after all. He hoped she wouldn't lose her cool and start raging, however. He knew Twitter was one of the places where etiquette went to die. 

He had looked at her profile and had recognized the girl from the couple of pictures Sheila used to keep in her office. 

Shane replied and hoped her next response wouldn't kill his burgeoning interest in the conversation.

**Shane Acciai**

_@SShane_

_@itchnbitch_ I couldn't agree more. Like you, I am invested in this subject. I am passionate and committed to what I'm teaching, so I swear the class is in good hands. Any interest in anthropology or occult studies?

***

Bonnie hummed in consideration when she read his message. Maybe her grams' class was in good hands after all. He didn't come off as stiff; he hadn't stomped off, figuratively speaking, because of her comment.

**Bonnie Bennett**

_@itchnbitch_

_@SShane_ Actually, I was considering philosophy, specifically ethics? I think it'd be interesting.

She needed to change her profile picture.

**Shane Acciai**

_@SShane_

_@itchnbitch_ Why ethics? #futurelawstudent?

For the first time since she'd made the worst gamble of her life and lost her grandmother again, Bonnie sat up on the couch. She muted the television so she could think.

**Bonnie Bennett**

_@itchnbitch_

_@SShane #nolaw._ I think it's interesting. I think about it a lot, kind of. Things are different, not black and white, so I think it would be great to study the different schools of thought and their history.

She worried her lips.

***

Bonnie's preferred field of study made Shane wonder if she was anything like her grandmother. He had a hard time believing she wanted to study philosophy for the hell of it, or even because she was passionate about it. He read and reread her tweet as if her inner thoughts would reveal themselves if he read each word just one more time.

**Shane Acciai**

_@SShane_

_@itchnbitch_ That's interesting. We have a great philosophy department. I say make the trip to Whitmore and sit in on a class, see what we've got waiting for you.

**Shane Acciai**

_@SShane_

_@itchnbitch_ I've always known I was going to be an anthropologist. Always knew I was going to throw myself into the occult, so I can't miss an opportunity to promote our program :).

***

Before he produced tweet after tweet about the merits of anthropology and the occult, however, he tweeted her a link to the philosophy department's website and the requirements for the major, which made Bonnie smile.

***

Bonnie stood in front of her large bathroom mirror and considered her face, trying hard to find traces of the girl in the picture. All she saw were bags under dull green eyes. Her cheeks hung in a way they did not in that picture. She had just washed her face, but she didn't feel like she was freshened up. She put on make-up, kept it simple, and then endeavored to take a picture that she liked.

She discarded numerous pictures, feeling positive that one could see all of her truths in those banal eyes. She smiled in a couple of the pictures, but rolled her eyes at all of them. When she grinned, she produced frightening images. She sighed and swatted away a sudden need to cry. She was pretty; she knew that. Once upon a time, there wasn't a picture she could take that she did not like. Caroline had named her the vainest member of the group and Elena had agreed with a surly undertone. Now she was spending fifteen minutes trying to take one good picture.

She huffed in frustration, her eyes watering. "Okay. Next one is the last one." 

She deleted it.

She decided to put her hair up in a regular ponytail, making sure every last tendril was tucked away. She closed her eyes and breathed as if she was preparing for a spell, ignoring how ridiculous that was. She raised the hand with the phone, camera ready. She opened her eyes, gave it one second, and clicked the shutter icon.

Upon examination of the picture, she recognized the girl in the other picture. She looked almost as young in the current picture. Just an inured version of the old one. She was more somber. It wasn't until she clicked on the picture to upload it that she noticed the tiny upward tilt of her lips. An attempt at a smile. It was the closest she could get at the moment.

***

The more she spoke to Shane, the more she looked at his picture, the one on the school website since his profile picture consisted of a bike leaning against a skinny tree. It got to the point where she pulled up the website every time she got a tweet from him. He was better than cute. He was hot.

***

Shane started to look forward to her tweets. He started to keep his phone in his pocket during lecture so that he could feel it buzz whenever she tweeted, so that he would know if he had something to look forward to the next time he checked his phone. 

***

It came up that he used to be Sheila's teaching assistant. It came up that Sheila was her grandmother. He talked about how much he'd admired Sheila, how she'd been tough but fair and had successfully upheld his interest in the occult.

**Shane Acciai**

_@SShane_

_@itchnbitch_ I'd never had a professor like her. We all miss her. I try very much to teach my class like she taught hers. With a lot of my style, of course.

**Bonnie Bennett**

_@itchnbitch_

_@SShane_ Thank you:). And I think I am going to take that trip to Whitmore. I'm ready for that change of scenery.

**Shane Acciai**

_@SShane_

_@itchnbitch_ Great! And if you have the time, you should definitely sit in on the intro to occult studies lecture. Just saying :). 

**Bonnie Bennett**

_@itchnbitch_

_@SShane_ I think I will. Location?

**Shane Acciai**

_@SShane_

_@itchnbitch_ Phyllis Hall. Room 122. Tuesdays and Thursdays 2-3:15. #seeyousoon

**Bonnie Bennett**

_@itchnbitch_

_@SShane_ I know that hall:). 

**Bonnie Bennett**

_@itchnbitch_

Trip to Whitmore on Thursday!!!!!

Thursday was two days away, and she was excited. It felt good.

***

Constant doses of Shane had her asking questions. What kind of person takes a good employee picture? His looks came across in his photo, and that wasn't normal, as far as she was concerned. As great as her pictures used to be, ID pictures were always her downfall. She was human. But Shane wasn't, she'd decided. She had stopped herself from Googling him, but on this night, in the dark of her room, she looked at his picture while lying in bed. Why not indulge? No one could see her. 

Was he a good kisser? She stared at his mouth and let her imagination take over. 

What did he sound like? Did he have a nice back? Oh God, how tall was he? How old was he? 

She laughed at herself. 

“He’s probably married. Or has a girlfriend. Or has a girlfriend who died in a freak....walking accident, and he never got over her, and he’s still in love with her, and buries himself in his work to numb the pain.”

She laughed longer. She didn’t spend her day thinking about spells and her grandmother and grimoires and the rut that she was in anymore. This was more fun.

Having successfully numbed her excitement about the hot professor by thinking about his dead girlfriend, she let out her distaste on a sigh, exited the webpage, and went to sleep. In her dream, she browsed Whitmore’s bookstore with her grandmother. 

 


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I might turn this into a four-parter. Bonnie and Shane are talking/subtly flirting a lot more in part 3 than I anticipated.

Bonnie's trip to Whitmore almost didn't happen, because a vampire came close to killing her while she was trying to choose between two outfits. 

She was standing in her bedroom, clad in a knee-length rich brown bathrobe, imagining herself walking around campus and meeting Shane in both outfits in order to decide which would make her look her best when her bedroom door suddenly crashed against the wall, causing the body sprays, lotions, and picture frames on the nearby dresser to knock into each other and topple over. 

Her scream was shrill enough to break down the veil between the world of the living and that of the dead. She came closer than she had ever been to Caroline's vampire face. Quick as lightning, Caroline was three inches from her face, fangs, red eyes, veins and all, yelling:

"HAPPY HALLOWEEN!!!" 

In the midst of her terror, and unable to tell if her heart was still beating or not, Bonnie tried to get away, but her brain had trouble communicating with her legs, so she wound up taking one step back and falling hard on her butt. "CAROLINE!"

Caroline didn't register Bonnie’s anger brought on by her fright. Her head was tipped back and she was laughing from deep in her throat and clapping her hands.

"I could've killed you!" Bonnie admonished from her position on the floor.

"Yeah right! Your powers aren't working! Do you seriously think I would've done this if they were? Do you have any idea how many days I've been waiting to do this?!" She cackled like a Hollywood witch.

"Well you don't know!" Bonnie huffed. "Extreme fear could've brought them back!"

"I considered that. I figured the worst that would happen is that you’d given me an aneurysm. Not like I haven't experienced _that_ before," she said, referring to the time Greta Martin took her out, in part, with an aneurysm. "It would've been worth it though. Your face!" She chuckled anew. "I got you good, didn't I?"

" _No_ ," Bonnie swore and then collapsed on the floor and waited for her heart rate to decrease. Her stomach trembled from the sudden rush of adrenaline. A giggle escaped her, and then she started chuckling.

"Oh my God." Caroline's voice had a hint of wistfulness as she plopped herself on Bonnie's bed and stared at the ceiling. "That was amazing. I should've caught it on video."

"I'm gonna get you next year."

"Thanks for the warning."

"Pfft, you'll have forgotten by then."

"Vampires have long memories."

"Yeah right." Bonnie sat up upon voicing her disbelief and then she stood.

"So what's with the wardrobe dilemma?" Caroline asked while she turned to lie on her stomach, her boots-enclosed feet swaying in the air.

"I'm going to Whitmore for the day."

"Whitmore---"

"College," she supplied while considering her choices. She had made up her mind on which blouse and sweater combination to wear. There was something about almost dying of a heart attack that aided in the decision process.

"Wait, you're skipping school _again_ , this time to go out of town?"

"I need it," she insisted meekly. When Caroline inclined her head in a clear, 'Yeah right,' she said, "My doctor's note is still good." Her father had gotten one of his friends, who was a doctor, to write her a note, excusing her from up to a week and a half's worth of classes. Rudy Wilson had suggested getting her the note after she'd told him she was going to miss a second day of school. Rudy could read his daughter's moods, a fact that  made his refusal to talk to Bonnie about her magic worse. Bonnie preferred to think that his willingness to let her skip school with no questions asked was her reward for being such a trustworthy daughter (for the most part) all those years before.

"Why are you going to Whitmore? Is it because of......?" Caroline let her question trail off out of respect.

"Kind of. Uh, I got in touch with the professor who's now teaching her classes, and he invited me to sit in on one." She wasn't going to bother going to a philosophy class. She could do that on another day.

"Nice. Things got a little exciting at school," Caroline began and sat up on the side of the bed. "Elena went back on Monday and Rebekah pretty much tortured her. She smeared blood----"

"Caroline?......Did she almost die?"

"What?"

"Elena. Was her life threatened or something?"

"Uh, not really."

"Then I don't....wanna hear about it," Bonnie said, unconsciously lifting her shoulders in order to assuage the awkwardness she felt at voicing such an unexpected opposition. She hadn't planned on saying anything. Her instinct had been to bear the talk of Elena and whatever she had going on, but listening to the beginning of Caroline's story had impressively caused her mood to plummet worse than the thought of Shane's dead girlfriend had last night. She had put her foot down and she hoped Caroline wouldn't question her about it. She knew chances were good that her friend would simply take her word, though. She had come to find that she could count on Caroline for that. 

Bonnie had no explanation to voice, none that would maker her or Caroline feel better anyways. She only had the feelings that, despite her attempts to keep them at bay, had crept through during her stay at home.

"Sorry," Caroline offered.

"It's ok," Bonnie assured her and gave a small smile. She grabbed the blouse and went to her full-length mirror.

"So I guess you still haven't talked to her."

"Nope," she sighed and put the top on her chest. "She hasn't been by; hasn't called, and I haven't been by and I haven't called." She had no idea how Elena was doing as a vampire. She realized belatedly that though Stefan had come by and had held a quasi conversation with her on her porch for about a minute, he hadn’t shared news about how Elena was doing. "I haven't seen anyone. I mean Jeremy called me after you guys left here the day of, and then he came by the next day, but I just couldn't deal. I promised him I'd text if I needed anything."

"You see me," Caroline pointed out.

"You're not anyone," Bonnie said, her tone containing a pinch of the obvious. "And you know that," she continued with a turn from the mirror, "And you're just fishing for compliments."

"I am," Caroline confirmed proudly with the shrug of one shoulder blade. 

Caroline no longer understood how Bonnie and Elena related to each other, or, more immediate to her concerns, how Bonnie related to Elena, and it was a topic she was looking to bring up. Before, the question of Bonnie and Elena relating to each other wasn’t pertinent. There hadn’t been need to think about it; it just _was_ , just like she and Bonnie just _were_ , and she and Elena just _were_. 

Bonnie hadn’t spoken to her much during their stay at Abby’s house. Caroline would ask her if she was okay, if everything was okay, and Bonnie would reply “Yeah” or “Yeah, it’s fine.” She would ask her if she needed anything, and she would reply, “No, I’m fine.” Her words had never matched her demeanor. She’d looked tired and mousy. And it wasn’t until she’d started coming over after Sheila’s banishment that she recalled that Bonnie had also spoken in a pitch lower than usual, almost as if she hadn’t wanted to hear her own voice. Caroline recalled how she’d sounded because that was how she’d sounded the first few days when she would drop by in the wake of Sheila’s banishment. Bonnie was starting to sound more like herself, but her voice dropped any time they got onto a topic that might bring up anyone outside of the house, everyone she was taking a break from.

And now Caroline was faced with a Bonnie who did not want to talk about Elena, and the capper was that she wasn’t sure if Bonnie was putting a moratorium on the topic of Elena because she was angry with Elena, mad at Elena, irritated with Elena, maybe it was Elena’s affiliation with what happened to Sheila? Maybe it was because Elena was a vampire? 

But Caroline knew the last option did not qualify; she just knew it in her gut. After seeing her for the last couple of days, she couldn’t imagine that this was how Bonnie had spent her time after _she’d_ become a vampire.

Caroline had been happy when Bonnie had forgiven Elena after Abby’s transition. It had seemed like the right thing to happen, for Bonnie and Elena to make up. She hadn’t wanted them to be on the outs. 

Now they were on the outs again, on Bonnie’s side at least, on Bonnie’s side _again_. There was something _wrong_ in Bonnie’s corner and it had to do with Elena, and Caroline didn’t understand what exactly the problem was, because she knew that if Elena showed up in the next second, Bonnie would greet her and interact with her as if nothing was wrong. And yet she didn’t want to talk about her.

So how did Bonnie relate to Elena? How did she work things out in her head? How does she not want to talk about Elena and yet will force herself to act natural in Elena’s face?

Caroline knew she got the real Bonnie all the time, no matter how happy, depressed, and, yes, angry. Bonnie certainly had not had a problem making it known when she’d had a problem with _her_ being a vampire. And this was the part where her emotions threatened to force her to open her mouth and bring up the topic, because she’d had to deal with Bonnie looking at her as if she didn’t know who she was; Bonnie had avoided her for days, with not so much as a phone call or a text. 

Caroline was frustrated because she didn’t understand what the hell was going on, why it was complicated (apparently), or why it was _different_ in this case when things had been so straightforward with her----

“Oh my God!” she said suddenly, cutting off her consideration of the girl who was straightening her perfumes, lotions, and picture frames.

“ _What?_ ” Bonnie asked testily. Caroline had scared her again.

Caroline held in her amusement. “A trip is _perfect_. Elena and I can come with you!”

“ _What?_ ” This time, Bonnie turned from her dresser.

“Elena needs to learn to feed from the vein, and this is the perfect opportunity for her to do it. We can go to Whitmore, and I can teach her, show her the ropes.”

“What......What are you talking about?”

“Oh, you don’t know. She can’t drink from blood bags or animals, it has to come straight from the vein, straight from the source.”

Bonnie shook her head, trying to get it. “Why?”

Caroline shrugged. “She thinks it’s because of her doppelganger status. She throws up any other blood. It kind of sucks, to be honest. _But_ , we can come with you, go out of town, and I can teach her control and how to feed on people.”

“You don’t feed on people.”

“No, but I know control. And...I want to feed on people. Sometimes.” Mostly she just wanted to kill them. She was more interested in killing them than on feeding on them. “Do you know who she’s been feeding on this whole time to get her fix?” she asked, cocking her head to the right.

Bonnie shook her head.

“Matt.”

“ _What?_ ”

“Matt. Matthias Donovan.” Caroline stood and started pacing in measured steps, gesticulating with her arms as she spoke. “He who wanted nothing to do with this once upon a time, yeah, now he’s walking around with a bandage on his _neck_ and another one on his wrist. I saw him at school on Monday, and I think it was the most disturbing thing I’ve ever seen. He’s serving as her personal blood bank.”

“Wait!” Bonnie exclaimed, needing a break in order to process the information. She considered the worst. “Is she _compelling_ him?”

“I have no idea! No, I don’t think so,” Caroline admitted in the next beat. “He’s in this....guilt spiral thing. He thinks it’s his fault she’s a vampire.” At Bonnie’s confused look, she explained, “He kidnapped her, remember? She wouldn’t have been on that bridge if it hadn’t been for him. And Jeremy. So he thinks it’s his fault Rebekah got the chance to drive them off the road. Not to mention Elena told Stefan to save him, and he’s of the opinion that that shouldn’t have happened, that Stefan shouldn’t have saved him first. So now he thinks he owes Elena his life, and this is his way of paying her back.”

Bonnie couldn’t reconcile what she was hearing with the Matt she knew. 

“They’ve been kind of close lately, but this is.....weird. You should see him, Bonnie, it’s.... _weird_. And it’s not safe. Feeding from only one person? _One person_? That’s dangerous. His body can’t sustain that, and I don’t know what she’s doing to _ween_ herself off of him, but I’m gonna help her along. She’s going to find other people to suck on, because this is just....” She huffed.

“Have you spoken to Matt about this?” Bonnie asked with a raised eyebrow. It was clear that Caroline was venting, which most likely meant that she hadn’t spoken to _anyone_ about Matt’s situation.

“ _No_. There’s no way he’d listen to me. He’s convinced he owes her, and she’s enabling him. And her....I don’t know what to say to her. So I figure the best course of action is for Matt to show up one day, only to find out that Elena no longer needs him. Maybe then he’ll figure out something else to do with his time, maybe light up or hit the bottle or something.”

She was at the same point of frustration with Matt that she was with Bonnie. Her question was _why_. Why was this different? Matt had recoiled from her when he’d found out that she was a vampire, had conspired with her mother and lied to her, and had finally broken up with her because he wanted a different life. Things had been so hard with both Bonnie and Matt. Both of them had broken her heart, particularly because they’d _both_ made their opinions and desires crystal clear to her, and now both of them were....what in the hell were they doing? She didn’t understand, and it was enough to make her want to blow a gasket.

Bonnie sighed but kept from massaging the bridge of her nose. “Fine,” she said and turned to fix her toiletries and pictures.

“No. Oh no, no, no. I didn’t say all that to guilt trip you.”

“Yeah, right,” she responded flatly.

“I’m serious! I’m sorry,” Caroline plead and sat heavily on the bed. “It just all came out, but you know what, if you don’t want us to come, then I’ll figure something else out. You just do what you need to do,” she said encouragingly.

“No, it’s fine,” Bonnie said and turned around. “Please, please come with me. You’re right; she does need to learn to feed from other people because this isn’t healthy for Matt, and I couldn’t think of two other people I’d rather spend time with, so please. _Please_ come with me to Whitmore.”

Caroline narrowed her eyes, parsing through the heavy sarcasm in order to latch on to the part where Bonnie agreed with her. “You won’t even know we’re there.”

“I won’t know there’s an almost week-old vampire roaming the campus and feeding on people?”

It wasn’t above Caroline to make promises that were perhaps impossible to keep, because she always did her best to keep them. “Nope.”

“I’m leaving in two hours.” Bonnie turned and resumed righting her dresser.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Elena appears in part 3.


	3. Chapter 3

The drive to Whitmore took an hour and fifty minutes. Bonnie began to let go of her disappointment at having two tag-alongs when the markers that signaled the distance to the college began to appear. 

She breathed new air when she got out of the car. The scene on campus looked so different from what she was used to at the high school that she momentarily forgot about her companions.

“Bonnie, are you sure you’re okay with this?” Elena asked after she came around the back of the car. She had grabbed the passenger’s seat without a second thought once she and Caroline had made it back to Bonnie’s house. Caroline had given her a sideways glance. They were both skipping school for the trip.

“We’re already here, aren’t we?” Bonnie asked as nicely as she could. “No going back now, though I’m sure you guys could’ve done this back home.”

“We couldn’t have,” Caroline contradicted. “There’s a hunter in town, remember?”

“Oh yeah,” Bonnie said passively. “You guys could’ve gone to Duke, if you really wanted a campus atmosphere.”

“Well....” Caroline began. “I mean I thought this would be a good opportunity for us to spend some time together. Why not?” she asked rhetorically when Bonnie stared at her and Elena looked at their surroundings. “I just thought it would be nice if we spent just a couple of minutes together. You know, maybe talk?”

“Right,” Bonnie said, unmoved.

“Wait, Bonnie, are you applying to Whitmore?” Elena asked.

“Yes.”

“You applied to Whitmore?” Caroline parroted.

“Well, I haven’t sent everything in yet, but I’m almost there.”

“When did you have time to do this?” Caroline asked.

“The past couple of weeks. I mean, that’s my life. I get home and suddenly everything has to be normal: talking to my dad, walking around the house, talking about school, normal. Nothing that happens outside the house matters once I get inside,” she said on a laugh full of disbelief. “So applying for college on top of....everything,” she didn’t look at Elena, “Isn’t a big deal. It’s just the routine of my life.” Her bitterness was rising.

 “Speaking of everything,” Elena sighed, “I don’t know if college is in my future anymore.”

 "Why not? It’s in my future,” Caroline pointed out.

 “I just....I don’t know.”

 Caroline shared a look with Bonnie, a look that went beyond Elena’s notice. 

"Okay, well I’m gonna go,” Bonnie announced. “Shane’s class starts in ten minutes, so.” She took deep breath. “Do not kill anyone; do not toy with anyone; just....do what you came here to do,” she said to Elena.

Elena nodded and pursed her lips.

“That’s lesson number one,” Caroline began. “You need an anchor. You need expectations; expectations are important. And no one has more expectations than Bonnie,” Caroline said happily.

Bonnie narrowed her eyes in suspicion, not sure where this was going.

“When I was learning to control myself, I thought of everything I wanted: first of all, I wanted to feel like myself again. I was _sick_ and tired of my emotions being out of control. I wanted to stop avoiding my mom. I wanted to be a regular person again. I wanted to see Matt again. _And_ , I wanted Bonnie to stop being mad at me.”

“I wasn’t mad at you,” Bonnie corrected.

“Felt like it,” Caroline replied without looking at her. Her focus remained on Elena. “So you need to find something, someone, people, or a couple of things, to live for: Jeremy, Stefan, Damon---”

“I thought you didn’t like Damon.”

“No, but you do, so if he’s the one that will make you fight, then focus on him. Focus on yourself. You want to be old Elena again; you don’t want to be driven by your urges.” 

Elena nodded, though her face was hard with unresolved tension.

“Listen to Caroline,” Bonnie counseled Elena. “She’s surpassed expectations.”

Caroline beamed.

Elena suddenly felt out of her element and developed an overwhelming urge to go back home. She wasn’t used to being talked at, to being instructed, not by the two of them. The expectations that the two girls talked about suddenly straddled her shoulders like an albatross. 

“Okay, see ya,” Bonnie said abruptly and walked off.

“Okay,” Elena sighed. “How do I do this?”

Hoping she would be effective in this role, Caroline began: “You need to choose someone, anyone. Sometimes I zero in on someone because I don’t like their outfit, or they’re mismatching. Sometimes they’re wearing high heels that they _obviously_ can’t walk in. Sometimes they have an ugly haircut or an ugly hairstyle. Sometimes the person will look like they smell.” Those particular people, the supposedly smelly ones, she imagined killing with a swift snap of the neck.  “But sometimes they look good! Amazing. But I mostly---”

“Focus on the ones with flaws,” Elena said, amused.  

“Yeah,” she let out on a charged exhalation. It was a good thing she’d downed two bags of blood this morning. The last thing she wanted was to be influenced by Elena’s scoping out targets, end up killing someone, and ruin Bonnie’s trip. “You just need to find your own niche.”

****

Bonnie tried to be inconspicuous as she took a deep breath in the hallway outside of the  lecture room. She let everything out and then she walked in. The room was bigger than she’d anticipated, and she surveyed the people in it as she made her way down to the front. She kept her eyes down on purpose, because she knew Shane was already in the room, and she didn’t want to look at him until she was absolutely ready. She found a seat and looked up and almost laughed at herself. It was if she was back in ninth grade and she was waiting for Ben McKittrick to walk into the cafeteria at any moment. 

Shane blew Ben out of the water, however. He was waiting for the computer to load so that he could open his presentation, and he looked even better than his photo. He waited beautifully, in Bonnie’s opinion, his face perfectly composed yet expectant, his arms outstretched on either side of the podium. He was a dream. 

She fingered her phone. There was no need to check the website. She had the living, breathing professor in front of her.

He opened the powerpoint and then walked to the front and waited for everyone to settle. He put his hands in his pockets, and Bonnie focused on his shoulders: broad enough. That said promising things about what his back must look like. 

It wasn’t until he spoke that she remembered that he was here to give a lecture, to do his job, not be ogled by her. She hoped the lecture wasn’t boring.

****

Bonnie had wanted to participate many times during the seventy-five minute lecture, but she had clamped her hands together and kept her mouth shut. She liked the way Shane taught. She found it interesting, even though he seemed to have trouble getting his class to participate. And when some of them had grown tired of the silence and chosen to participate, she had wanted to sink into her chair. She’d even rolled her eyes a couple of times at some of the opinions, something that hadn’t gone unnoticed by Shane.

He’d made her out and would sometimes look at her while saying something, or after someone had said something, as if they shared an inside joke. It made the class even more interesting for her.

The lecture was over and some students went up to talk to Shane, about some points in the lecture, about something they’d heard in a documentary, about the five page paper he’d reminded them about, so she hung back. Her turn soon came, and she approached him tentatively and took in his smile.

“Hi.”

“Hi,” she responded on a laugh. “I’m Bonnie,” she said quickly and held out her hand.

“Shane,” he answered and shook her hand with a cold one, a result of the air conditioning. “I was hoping my shoe-horned Twitter reference wouldn’t go unnoticed,” he said lightly.

“I _thought_ that was meant for me.”

He smiled and set to packing his things. “So what did you think of the class?”

“Hey sorry,” someone said at Bonnie’s side. 

She turned and encountered a burly guy who sounded like a good time was always on his itinerary. “You going to the murder house party tonight?”

“Uh, no?” 

“Well, you’re invited,” he said, handing her a flyer complete with a nice smile. “See you there.”

“Thanks,” she said, elated. 

“See you on Tuesday, professor.”

“Later,” Shane said, stuck in a mid-bend as he watched the student leave.

“I’m sorry,” Bonnie apologized. “I have no idea who he is.”

“It’s okay; I didn’t think so,” he assured as he continued packing up. “But manners, what are they?” He gave her suffering look beneath his lashes.

“Yeah, it seems you bored some people in the back row.”

“I wasn’t boring them; they were having a discussion about witches, didn’t you hear him?”

She laughed and they made their way out of the classroom through the exit by the podium. 

“So, were you bored or did I surpass expectations? My official evaluation is still a couple of months away, but if you feel there’s something I need to change or work on now....”

“Hmmm,” she mulled over her answer, all the while trying valiantly to hide her smile. “It was better than I expected. I might need to sit in on a couple more lectures, but I think you’re off to a good start.”

“Does this mean I’ve won you over to the anthropology department?”

She chuckled. “Maybe. I mean....I wouldn’t mind hearing more.”

Shane almost stopped walking at the tone of her voice, but he moved on. She probably sounded like that in every day conversation, though he wasn’t sure about the look in her eyes when he’d glanced at her. “Do you have time? I have a forty-five minute break before my next class, and I was going to grab lunch. I can regale you with a preview of Tuesday’s lecture.”

“I’m actually here with two friends, but yeah, I do have time.”

They made their way to the food court, and he offered to pay for her food. She declined, but he insisted and looked her in the eyes while doing it, and she wasn’t sure why that seemed so different. She allowed him to pay for her, and, once they were seated, he thanked her for coming.

“It was worth the trip.” 

“Have you checked out any of the philosophy classes I suggested?”

“Uh, I will. Sometime. So tell me. What’s the plan for next week?”

Shane nodded and rubbed his hands together, and began. They went on a tangent about his expertise and his travels. Bonnie told him of the many trips she had made to Whitmore in the past, how she used to hang out in Sheila’s office, how she and her father sometimes came to town in order to shop. She told him what high school she went to and that she wasn’t so much excited to go to college, but was just....waiting. Waiting to see what it would be like.

“Change of scenery, right?”

“Right,” she concurred. “And I guess I should start being collegiate. I should probably change my Twitter handle.”

“Itchin’ bitch?”

“Not _itchin’_ bitch. Itch _in_ bitch. It’s from one of my favorite movies. _Bring it On?_ Have you heard of it?”

“That...cheerleading movie?”

“Yeah. I...was...a cheerleader.”

“Really?” He sounded wholly fascinated. “I mean---”

“What?” Bonnie egged him on.

“Nothing,” he said quickly with a smile.

“No, go ahead, what? Have some prejudices you need to get off your chest?”

“No, not at all. I just wouldn’t think on sight that you were....a cheerleader.”

“Whatever that means,” she countered.

“Whatever that means,” he agreed.

“I quit,” she admitted. “It just...fell down the list of priorities. Anyways, that’s one of my favorite lines in the movie. _She puts the itch in bitch_.”

He nodded and sipped his Powerade. 

“What about you? Your last name is Acc---Acc---”

“Acciai,” he pronounced it for her. “It’s Italian.”

“You’re Italian?”

“As recently as my great-grandparents,” he laughed. “I keep meaning to visit the country though.”

“So where does the S in _SShane_ come from?”

“It’s a nickname.”

She inclined her head playfully at his reservation and peered into him like she was trying to read him, and his smile widened in amusement.

“I don’t think you need to change your Twitter handle. Not unless you plan on harassing other unsuspecting professors.”

“I didn’t harass you!” she objected indignantly. “I was having a private conversation, and you decided to butt in.”

“A private conversation with yourself?”

“Yes,” she said with a lift of her chin, and he chuckled.

She opened the flyer she had received earlier and spread it on the table, smoothing it with her hand.

“Are you going?” He indicated the flyer with his cup. “And by the way, happy Halloween.”

“Thanks,” she responded without thinking. And then, “Happy Halloween to you too.” She could’ve sworn after her initial response, though, that he’d looked at her just a little more intensely. “And I don’t know if I’m going.”

“I almost pledged to them.”

“You were almost a frat boy?” 

“I’m trying to figure out if that’s disbelief I’m hearing or ridicule.”

“Which were you feeling when you said you wouldn’t guess I was a cheerleader?” she asked boldly. 

“Touché.”

“Mmm-hmm.”

“I quit in the middle of pledging.”

“Ooo, I bet that was pretty.”

“ _Yeah_. But looking at the current brothers, I’d say I made the right call.”

“I would agree. And I don’t know if I’m going. Maybe. I don’t,” She cut her waffling short with a grimace.

“Well hey, I have two classes left for the day, and then I’m done. Whoever packed your grandmother’s stuff a couple of months ago missed some things. They’re stacked away in the office. If you want to take them back with you....You’re welcome to stop by. I’ll be in the office around nine.”

“I’d love that. I mean, you know, that would be nice.” 

***

Bonnie strolled at her leisure, from the cafeteria to where Caroline and Elena were currently stationed, which was at a table among groups of tables in the quad in front of the interdisciplinary sciences building. She waved the flyer at her side, used it to brush the air, as she replayed the time she’d just spent with Shane.

The reality of him was better than her jaded fantasy, a rare occurrence. He was more fun to talk to in person. He did indeed have a nice back. He had gotten up at one point to refill their drinks. His voice was an enticing mix of hoarse, deep, and gentle. When he spoke, she found herself holding still and tilting forward. The raspy timbre of his voice arrested her attention. She didn’t want to miss anything he said, nor did she want to ask him to repeat himself, because that would be wasting time when she could be listening to him pronounce words, words that she’d heard many people articulate before in different contexts but that took on new and more interesting forms when they came out of his mouth.

She wished she’d paid more attention to his mouth.

The flyer slipped from her flaccid fingers and she bent to retrieve it and then continued her playback.

She wished she’d paid more attention to his mouth, but she was more than satisfied with the copious amount of eye contact she had made with him. Those eyes. Set in that face. Accentuated by those eyebrows.

She started smiling to herself. She could watch his mouth later. She definitely wanted to see him again. Talking to him had been....a little exhilarating.   

Actually no. The exhilaration, what she felt at this moment, came from the fact that she wanted to....kiss him. She wanted to kiss Shane. Why not?

How would that work out?

She wasn’t going to start Whitmore for months ahead. She can kiss him and not show her face on campus until freshman orientation.

How would that work out? She had had fun talking to him. They’d laughed, but....how old was he? 

A nice conversation replete with talks about his travels, his upcoming lecture, her present and her future did not mean he was ready to kiss her. Or that he wanted to kiss her. Or that she wasn’t too young for him.

Exhilaration officially dulled.

She came out of her head just in time to watch Caroline harshly drop her butt on a bench in a fit of frustration and stiffly put one leg over the other while she crossed her arms.

Elena turned to face Bonnie, slow, and Bonnie knew the two vampires were reaching the end of their respective ropes.

“How’s it going?” She asked tentatively, her steps suddenly echoing those of someone who was walking in a mine field.  

“It isn’t,” Caroline said tightly. “It’s not going anywhere. _We_ haven’t gotten anywhere.”

“You haven’t fed from anyone?” 

Bonnie’s disbelief skidded on Elena’s nerves.

“It’s been like two hours.”

Elena inhaled but before she could answer, Caroline cut in. 

“Two hours, yeah. She’s determined to block herself. Every person I point to, she tries, and then she freezes.” Caroline stands up to better make her point. “She starts thinking about their families and their friends, and their lives, and I keep telling her to let go of all of that, but she can’t. I don’t know why. Just _feed_ and wipe their memory!”

Caroline spoke to Bonnie as if _she_ had been the one freezing up for two hours.

“It’s not that simple,” Elena said tightly.

“You have no trouble doing it to Matt,” Caroline whirled on Elena. “I mean I know we haven’t seen his mom in like forever, but she still exists. He has friends; he has a job; he had a sister, like....what is the problem?”

“Caroline...is there something you wanna say to me? I mean....you’ve been....” She has never been good at confronting Caroline or Bonnie. She actually couldn’t think of a time when she’d done so. Back when Caroline was prickly with her, Bonnie was always the one who stopped Caroline with a look or a well-timed “Caroline.” But Caroline singling her out had never felt like this. It had been annoyance: Caroline would be annoyed by her, and she would become annoyed with Caroline. But this....

She missed Damon. And Stefan. If Stefan were here, he’d be taking his time with her. He’d be going at her pace, suggesting things before she would even get the chance to think it. Damon wouldn’t go at her pace, but he would be considerate if she played her cards right. It wasn’t that she preferred to be handled with kid gloves. But there was no denying that it felt nice. Nicer than this. Because she’d started picking up something from the way Caroline spoke to her, and now that Bonnie was back and the tall blonde was venting, Elena officially felt like she was being talked at. There was something going on between Caroline and Bonnie. Bonnie didn’t say anything at the moment, but Elena remembered her demeanor before she’d left for the lecture. 

She was uncomfortable, and she wanted to go home. 

“What?” Caroline shrugged. 

The innocence of it made Elena’s face twitch. “Why did you invite me here? Okay, what is this? Why are you suddenly concerned about me feeding?”

“You left me a message telling me the animal blood thing wasn’t working with Stefan.”

“So it took you this long to get back to me? I’ve got it under control.”

“Oh, you mean Matt?”

Bonnie wanted to sit on the bench Caroline had vacated.

“Yeah, I mean Matt. He’s been helping me. You have no idea what this feels like. I can’t eat---”

“Matt isn’t doing this to _help_ you. That’s not all of it. He’s got some weird guilt-penance thing going on. Do you have any idea how guilty he feels about that accident?”

“He said he owed me; he feels like he owes me.”

“And he’s repaying you by being a human blood bag!”

“Caroline,” Bonnie said under her breath. The agitated vampire was getting loud.

 “That’s not _normal_ ,” Caroline continued, undeterred. “It’s not healthy, and you’re just letting him---”

 What do you want me to _do_ , Caroline?! I’m not his _shrink_!”

 Hey!” Bonnie yelled louder than Elena. 

None of them paid attention to the six people that looked their way as they headed to and from class, but Elena gave Bonnie her attention while attempting to calm down. Her pin-straight hair framed her face in a way that made her look like she was off her rocker. Caroline kept her attention on Elena. She was gobsmacked primarily by the tone of Elena’s response since she wasn’t used to her snapping at her, and underneath that she was surprised by the dismissal in what Elena had said.

Elena wanted to bend to Bonnie’s will, but she wasn’t done. She couldn’t let what she’d said stand, so she turned to Caroline and continued. “I know he’s going through some stuff, but....so am I---”

“ _Right_ ,” Caroline said sharply.

Elena looked at Caroline like the latter was evolving into a beast before her eyes, and she cut her attention to Bonnie. She spoke to Bonnie, but she sounded like she was continuing her argument with Caroline. “How was your lecture?” 

“It was fine,” Bonnie said calmly. “Um. There’s a Halloween party happening tonight. I’ve been invited. We can go.” She holds the flyer out to Elena without thinking and flinches when she takes it.

“What?”

“Nothing,” Bonnie said between her teeth even though Death had giddily run up her arm and wrapped around her neck and wrapped around her neck and wrapped around her neck until she was forced to cough. Elena had no kills under her belt, so instead, Bonnie felt her basic desires. Elena wanted blood. She wanted to feed and she wanted to _fight_. Bonnie flexed her hand and hoped the brunette would succeed in controlling herself and not fly off the handle and into Caroline’s face.

“You’re dead,” Caroline said insensitively. She apologized when Elena gasped. “Sorry. But it’s her witchy senses. You guys haven’t touched since you turned; I think it’s been a week?” She put on a show of mentally calculating the days.

Bonnie shot her a look. While she found a certain purgation in watching Caroline argue with Elena, she really wasn’t in the mood to argue with the new vampire herself. She might find herself as tongue-tied as Elena had just been.

“Your powers....are gone. But you can still feel how dead I am?” Elena swallowed, and her face fell. Her small lips parted as her eyes wandered and she momentarily retreated into herself. 

The sight almost made Bonnie apologize for something that existed for her own good. “You can’t lose something that’s innate, I guess,” she said softly. “More innate than my other powers, I don’t know.”

Bonnie had lost her powers, but she still had the one mechanism that alerted her to danger. She, Elena, was danger. People, a witch, needed to be alerted to her. Elena was suddenly very tired. Despondent, she read the flyer with no real interest. “A murder house party?”

“What are we dressing as?” Caroline asked. “Vampires and witches?”

“I’m not dressing as a witch.”

 "And I’m not going as a vampire,” Elena said. All of her disinterest in Caroline’s idea were in her dark eyes when she looked at her.

“Besides,” Bonnie continued, “There’s a theme.” She sat on Elena’s right. “You either dress as a real killer or the victim of a killer.”

Elena scrunched her nose, and Caroline voiced what she felt about the theme. “Ew. That’s....morbid. And kind of lame. I don’t think I’d throw that kind of party,” she said, thinking to herself. 

 Bonnie smiled.

"We should match,” Caroline said. “Which means we should go as victims,” she said, putting her hands on her hips. “It’s easier to match.”

“Buying costumes on Halloween? Good costumes?” Elena asked. 

“I know some stores. I mean I don’t know if we’ll find much, but we can check them out,” Bonnie offered.

“And if not, there’s always lingerie stores. What?” Caroline asked when Elena and Bonnie looked at her. She switched gears and softened her voice, because even though she’d lost it with Elena, she did not want this trip to be a failure. She wanted to close the Matt Donovan Blood Bank for good, because its existence was bad for Matt’s mental health, and because if it continued to exist, she might be sent into rages, because back when she was struggling----“This is another chance. You didn’t feed. You need to at some point, and this party is a great opportunity.”

Caroline sounded very understanding and very encouraging. This was the soothing voice that had made Elena agree to the trip even though her stomach had knotted at the suggestion. Maybe the stomach knotting had been a sign. And maybe she should’ve listened to it. She sighed. “Fine.” As she was getting up, she felt like there was a vampire about three hundred years older than her pushing her down. Whatever had happened between her and Caroline, wherever it had come from, whatever it was that Bonnie was thinking or feeling, it wasn’t over. She walked between them as they made their way back to the car, and she decided that she’d be ready the next time something went off.

“Bonnie, the professor’s class took two hours?” Caroline asked.

“No, uh. We ate lunch afterwards.”

Elena looked at her curiously and Bonnie wondered if that sounded like a date. “We talked about my grams,” was the first thing that came out of her mouth, and it worked. Elena faced forward and her features relaxed. “I might actually major in anthropology. It was....really interesting.”

“Huh,” Caroline said as she mentally pictured their matching outfits.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Another argument between Caroline and Elena in part 4? Why yes, and Elena's instinct that it's two against one will be proven right when Bonnie jumps into the argument (though the majority of Bonnie's personal issues with Elena's presence in her bad situation will remain unvoiced). Speaking of voices,
> 
> Shane's thoughts will get more space once Bonnie shows up in her Halloween costume :D.


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N: As I reread this (much longer) chapter after finishing it, the more I wanted to separate this argument from the rest of the chapter since the majority of the chapter is Bonnie/Shane sex with only one intermission in the form of a Caroline and Elena scene at the party. Which means chapter 5 is already finished, and I will post it later today.
> 
> For those who will wonder while reading, this argument was written two or maybe three weeks before 4.08 aired.

Bonnie was going to sleep with Shane. The decision was made. He was too hot for her not to....kiss him. Okay a kiss. She was going to kiss Shane. 

She loved the outfit that she'd picked out. The dresses had looked like scraps on the hangers, but once they had tried them on and then made a trip to Spencer's and then Frederick's (what they were wearing underneath served to enhance their confidence about the costumes), everything had come together. 

Bonnie loved the way she looked. This was a different look from the second Twitter picture she had taken. She felt different. She wanted something different. In this outfit, she became part of the new scenery she wanted. She was the change.

"Hot, hot, hot," Caroline declared as she appraised Bonnie's outfit while Elena applied Bonnie's neck wound. This was a step up from the outfit Bonnie had been wearing earlier. She had been surprised that morning when she'd seen the two outfits Bonnie had laid out as possibilities for what she might wear to Whitmore. They were cute, cute in the way that outfits were cute when one wasn't impressed by them. She had wanted to ask Bonnie when she'd found time to go shopping and why she'd decided to buy _those_ clothes. She'd decided to keep her mouth shut because Bonnie was in mourning, so she was allowed to dress bad. Still. Bonnie dressing bad in mourning was worse than Elena doing it. At least Elena had just abstained from accessories and noticeable make-up after her parents had died. Bonnie had taken to....too many layers during her sabbatical at home.

Caroline had forgotten to keep a vigilant eye out for the costume Bonnie was choosing, but it seemed her fears had been unfounded. Seeing Bonnie in her late nineteenth  century victim costume was like meeting the true identity of a superhero. Bonnie had gone through her transformation, sartorially speaking.

"We spent way too much money," Bonnie said. They'd needed tools to do their hair,  make-up, the shoes to go with the costumes, sweaters (that matched the costumes) in case they got cold or uncomfortable, wipes to clean themselves, deodorants and body sprays, and of course the lingerie. 

"Yeah, we did," Caroline said.

"Done," Elena announced. 

Bonnie tentatively lowered her head and felt the wetness of her wound. 

"You look beautiful. In a dead way."

"Thank you."

"Okay pictures!" Caroline's heels clop-clopped on the floor as she ran to lock the bathroom door in the drugstore where they'd bought the last of their materials, and then she whipped out her phone and gathered with Bonnie and Elena in front of the mirror. 

Bonnie stood in the middle; Elena was in front of her, and Caroline brought up the back. And while Bonnie's wide smile made her face hurt, she really was in high spirits. Especially since she was thinking about Shane.

The camera went off, and Elena giggled. "What kind of victims are we?" she asked, while Caroline checked the picture.

"Prostitutes," Bonnie decided and shimmied while looking at herself in the mirror. "We were walking the street when someone killed us."

"Nice," Caroline said. She was distracted with checking the picture.

Elena shrugged in acceptance.

"We can be ghost prostitutes who've come back to haunt the person who killed us," Caroline said while pointing Elena to a corner of the wall so that the latter can take solo pictures.

"To _kill_ the person who killed us," Bonnie said while she wound her hips and stroke her thighs. She looked too good to leave town without....flirting. Okay, flirt. She was going to flirt with Shane before the night was over.

Elena started feeling awkward after her first solo pose, but she continued like a trooper while Caroline snapped. 

"Perfect. My turn!"

Caroline only took two pictures and shrugged when Elena frowned at her. 

Bonnie took her pictures in front of the mirror. She pursed her lips and blew kisses, and her hands were always on a part of her body.

"Scandalous," Caroline mused while looking at the results, and Elena chuckled. "Okay," she said definitively and turned to Elena. "Ready?"

The humor seeped from Elena's face, and she nodded. Even Bonnie stopped looking at herself and stopped wondering what Shane's office looked like.

"Great," Caroline said quietly.

They picked up the various bags that contained their things and made their way to the car.

Elena sat in the backseat and kept her gaze on the scenery passing by her window.

"You're ready, right?" Caroline asked somberly when they got close to the campus.

"Yeah," Elena answered in kind.

Bonnie held herself still while she drove.

"Just remember old Elena. You want to be old Elena."

Elena chuckled. Her voice came out harder the more she spoke. "Caroline, do you remember what old Elena ate? She ate....lentil soup. And chicken. And Chinese food and pizza. She didn't eat American and Mexican and Asian Fusion." 

Caroline turned in her seat as Bonnie frowned to herself. "What? What are you talking about?"

" _I didn't drink blood_."

"What the hell is Asian Fusion?"

"Nothing!" she snapped and looked out the window as Bonnie parked. "I don't want to drink blood." She looked at Caroline. "I don't want to want it, I---" She sighed. "And you know why I can feed from Matt while I can't feed from those people? Because he's Matt. Because I do know him. I know his name, his family, his life, where he works. I don't know those people. And if I don't know them, then why shouldn't I kill them?"

"I'm sorry. I really am, but you need to get over that. There's no other way to say it," Caroline said defensively when Elena chuckled and shook her head. "You _need_ to get over that. You need to feed. We can't leave here until you learn how to feed on people without killing them, people who aren't Matt."

"You have no idea what this feels like."

"I---" Shock and hurt delayed Caroline's comeback a nanosecond too long, long enough for Bonnie to turn in her seat.

"What are you _talking_ about? Stop _saying_ that. What do you mean she doesn't know what it feels like? You have to feed from the vein; you have to feed from the vein. _It's not a hard concept,_ " she said and faced forward again. " _I_ understand it."

"Why the hell did you guys invite me on this trip? Because it wasn't to help me."

"I didn't invite you on this trip," Bonnie muttered. She wasn't trying to hide what she said, so Elena heard her.

Elena wrenched the door open and got out of the car. Caroline and a sighing Bonnie followed.

"I'm not doing this," Elena declared and crossed her arms. "I'm done. I have other people to help me adjust, thank you very much. I'll do this when I get back home. And don't you worry about _Matt_ ," she said to Caroline. "Or do. I don't care. If you're worried about him, then talk to him not me. I'm not going to the party."

"I will. I'll talk to him. Same as I've been talking to Bonnie."

"Fuck," Bonnie let out.

Elena grabbed Caroline's arm when the latter moved to walk past her. "Did you bring me here to punish me? To show off? Which is it? You're going to talk to Matt and you've been talking to Bonnie, good for you. What does that make you, Caroline? What _title_ does that get you? Miss what? And you knew this," she said, turning to Bonnie, tears gathering in her brown eyes, "You knew she had an axe to grind, and you----"

"Don't talk to me," Bonnie said and looked around for the building that housed Shane’s office. Because she was not going to get into it with Elena. She hadn't invited her to this trip. She tolerated her being here because she did need to get a handle on her feeding, but she wasn't interested in fighting or confronting anything.

"I'm not going to that fucking party," Elena spat. "And what have you guys been saying about me?"

Bonnie let her head fall back and closed her eyes.

"We don't talk about you," Caroline said, and she said it as if she wanted it to eat at Elena. They don't talk about her.

" _Bonnie."_ Elena's voice tends to go down an octave when she's angry. Her pronouncement of Bonnie's name came from deep in her gut. Her emotions were revving, and she walked past Caroline, didn't spare her a glance, and stood in front of Bonnie. The witch was letting Caroline speak in her place. Elena saw now that Bonnie had things to say too, and she for some reason was willing to hang back and let Caroline come at her instead of saying her peace.

"Don't," Bonnie said, as if that would be the end of it.

"You obviously have something to say---"

"I have _many_ things to say," Bonnie said and pinned Elena with a furious gaze. "And only some of them have _anything_ to do with you. I have no idea where my grandmother _is,_ Elena. I have no idea what's happening to her. I! Don't! Know! And you want me to talk about _you_? You think I've been talking about you? Really? Screw you! And your _blood shit_! I TORTURED MY GRANDMOTHER! I DON'T CARE ABOUT YOU! You can't talk to Matt because you have shit going on? _I_ can't talk to you because _I_ have shit going! And you know what?" She moved past Elena and then turned to look at her and Caroline. 

"I didn't come here for this. I came here to get _away_ from this! I'm not going to the party either. I'm going to Shane's office to get my stuff." She threw the car keys to Elena who caught them. "Do whatever you want. I don't care. I'm out of here." 

She had never planned on going to the party. She hadn't picked out her costume because she planned on _dancing_ in it. She'd picked it out so that Shane could see her and be amazed. She'd picked it out because she wanted to direct his mind.

"And since _I'm_ not doing anything important," Caroline said while Bonnie was walking off. Elena ground down on her molars. "I might as well go to the party. No need for this trip to be a complete bust." She walked to the passenger seat, grabbed the wrinkled flyer out of the glove compartment, and went off in search of the Greek house in which the party was being hosted.

Elena got in the backseat and fumed.


	5. Chapter 5

The grounds of the building where Shane's office was located were quiet and sparse with people. The only ones around were the students leaving the building. Bonnie went inside and found one set of stairs. She'd worked on casting Elena and Caroline from her thoughts as she'd walked from the car. She needed her mood to improve.

She heard voices and once she got close to the handrail she saw Shane speaking to two students. He suddenly looked every bit the unattainable professor-adult-normal-non-Mystic Falls-resident who probably couldn’t fathom such things as torturing one's own grandmother. 

Bonnie became verklempt and tried to be as quiet as possible as she ascended the steps. She resisted looking at Shane for an entirely different reason now. She felt out of place in her new scenery. 

When she looked up, the students had disappeared and Shane was looking at her. She stopped short, surprised. Then he smiled that friendly smile she'd enjoyed during their lunch and she smiled back.

Inside his office, she took her time exploring while he bustled around. He set his bag down and talked while looking for the box with her grandmother's things. She listened to him while wondering at how he'd occupied the office with so much _stuff._ Back when Sheila had held the office, all of the _stuff_ had been centered on the desk. The extent of Sheila's reach had been the paintings with which she had decorated the walls. 

In contrast, Shane managed to fill every corner of the office with his things. She loved it. It reminded her of how crowded she kept her room. The office was big, but, unlike with her grandmother, it didn't feel cozy because of the person who held it, it felt cozy because of the amount of things in it.

"This is amazing," she said, both because of how he'd transformed the office and because of his possessions. She fingered the leaves of a small jade bonsai plant he kept by the window closest to his desk. The plant was about six inches tall.

"It's all stuff you picked up on your travels?"

"Yeah." He handed her one of Sheila's books. "I do this thing, it's like a one man traveling occult exhibit to small towns. Funds my crazy Indiana Jones adventures."

She wanted to ask if she could join him on his next trip.

She smoothed down the front jacket of Sheila’s copy of _Cujo_. When she pulled out the photograph that served as a page marker, she was confronted with another version of herself. This was the last picture she took with her grandmother. It was taken on Sheila’s back porch during the weekend Bonnie had spent learning about her heritage. She had been atwitter with the desire to see her grandmother use her powers once she’d started to believe Sheila’s recount of their family history. Sheila had taken pity on her the day before she’d had to leave. She’d taken Bonnie to the back yard and had demonstrated a couple of nature spells.

The first thing Sheila had done was take the life from a dhalia flower in the garden she had learned to keep after Abby had left town. 

As the white-yellow flower had wilted, Bonnie’s face had fallen with it. She had felt a combination of disturbed and great interest. She’d had to stop her brain from telling her that the flower dying was only in her head. No. It really happened. Magic was real, and her grandmother had it. Her grandmother had possessed it this whole time.

Sheila had waited for Bonnie to accept what she’d seen, for the shock to settle, before she had uttered the spell that would give the flower new life. And Bonnie’s face had risen with it.

_“How?”_

_“You have great potential inside you, Bonnie. You come from a long, strong line of witches who stayed faithful to the craft to allow you that potential.”_

"Do you practice? Like she did?" 

Bonnie’s heart thudded and a shot of adrenaline rushed down her arms and stomach. Her legs weakened with it. Shane’s voice pulled her out of her reverie. It was like he’d come up behind her and had caught her by surprise. Not by by being loud and shouting in her ear, but by quickly seizing her waist. Only he was standing in front of her, and his light green eyes were impossibly big.

“What?” She knew what he’d asked.

“I’m a true believer. Shhh,” he coaxed, putting a long index finger to his lips, “Don’t tell anyone.”

Bonnie regained her composure, glanced at his finger, and said, “A believer....Um. My grams loved this stuff. She taught it, yeah, but....practice?” She frowned and put on the air of someone who was trying to understand what he was getting at.

Shane backed up and half sat on his desk. One of his feet remained on the ground while the other dangled, and he clasped his hands between his legs. He looked at her, and Bonnie felt like he was waiting for her to cut the crap and come out with the truth he already knew. He _knew_. Even though he remained composed and his demeanor remained friendly, she was certain that he knew. She didn’t know what that meant, so she was ready to continue feigning ignorance.

“She didn’t go riding around on brooms.” She chuckled for effect.

“She never flat out told me that she practiced. That....That isn’t how witches work, but I eventually figured it out. After our many appointments, before I became her teaching assistant, I started noticing something about the way she taught. She wasn’t teaching something she’d learned from textbooks and studying. She was teaching....a life experience.”

He spoke as if Bonnie had answered “Yes” to his question instead of trying to dodge him.

“And she knew that I knew. I don’t think she minded. If she did....well....we wouldn’t be having this conversation.”

She smiled when he smiled. She didn’t mean to, but he was speaking and there was something she loved about his voice, the way he said things, as if he was always instructing.

“I was also her favorite student,” he said, shifting on the desk. “She never flat out said that either.”

Bonnie laughed, and he laughed with her. “Oh, I know all about that. She and my dad have that in common.The praises are few and kind of far between. They don’t, or didn’t, gush.” She set the book on the bookcase closest to her. “So what are your plans for Halloween?” she asked as she resumed walking around.

Shane took stock of the fact that she hadn’t answered his question. “Uh, go home. Watch a couple of horror movies: Psycho, Who’s Afraid of Virginia Wolf. Glitter.”

Bonnie turned to look at him. “That is _not_ funny.” 

“You like Glitter?”

“ _You’ve_ seen Glitter?” None of her close friends had seen Glitter. She didn’t know what kind of music Shane listened to, so she couldn’t be sure he knew anything about Mariah Carey besides the generic _‘She’s an icon.’_  

She’d been only nine years old when the movie had come out. Rudy’s family and friends had told him about it, and he’d needed to see the movie for himself, because the ads and word of mouth hadn’t been enough. He’d gone with some work friends and had taken Bonnie with him. 

At nine years, Bonnie had perceived Billie as absolutely glamorous. She had a dream, had her friends, and had found a cute guy that wanted to help her. She fell in love, they fought, and she became famous. And he died. That had been the part that hit her the hardest. That had been the part that made Billie such a tragic character for her, the kind of character that became Caroline’s favorite as they got older. 

She’d seen the movie a second time with her grandmother. It would be four more years before she really took note of the part about Billie reuniting with her estranged mother.

Shane laughed and ducked his head. He’d caught on to her implication about someone like him knowing anything about Glitter. He crossed his arms and said, “ _Yes_ , I’ve seen Glitter.”

“It’s a good---Well---”

“Well,” he mimicked, as if to say, ‘Yeah, don’t go too far there.’

“You know what, yes,” she continued and came to stand in front of him. 

He was so busy looking at her face that he didn’t register just how close to him the rest of her had gotten. She was animated, a marked difference from how she’d appeared on the stairs. 

“It _is_ a good movie. Billie is...a sad person, who got what she wanted and still lost out in a way.”

“I know what Billie was _supposed_ to be, and I see what Ms. Mariah Carey did with it.”

He started laughing when she said, “You know what? Forget it. Forget you. There have been worst movies.”

“That’s true.”

“And you own it on DVD.”

“I don’t, actually; I plan to---Nevermind,” he said, staring into her green eyes. They were many shades darker than his leafy green ones.

“Illegally download it?” She teased.

There was danger in the way she was looking at him. So much danger that it slipped his mind to acknowledge what she’d just said. “What are you doing for Halloween? Are you on your way to the party?”

In another reality, he most certainly did not lower his eyes to her chest and then her abdomen while asking the last question. It was a quick appraisal, but she was standing entirely too close not to notice. His salvation lay in the possibility that her mind travelled a cleaner path than his, and she wouldn’t think anything of his glance. His mind was trying to make something of the various times he’d caught her looking at him, as if they were meeting for lunch in an entirely different context, the various times her gaze had challenged a certain suggestiveness, the various times her words had sounded like an invitation to a flirting match. His mind was trying to spin them into something....heavy. Wicked.

He shouldn’t have averted his gaze after giving her the once over. He should’ve looked straight back up. Maybe. Maybe it was a lose-lose situation. He looked away and played it off like it was natural, like he wasn’t thinking about anything, and he wished he could dupe himself into thinking that it had all been in his head, like he hadn’t very astutely pinned her interest in him. An interest that wouldn’t exist on her part if it wasn’t mutual, mutual in the sense that: at no point had either of them whole-heartedly attempted to engage with each other based on status.

He was a professor, an authority figure, and she was a student and much younger than him. From the moment he’d engaged her on twitter, from the _way_ he had engaged her, it was different. She exuded her very own authority. That much had been suggested in her tweets. It had been confirmed when he’d met her. The way she talked, walked, and interacted with him: she had her own authority, and that wasn’t to be ignored. 

So yes, there was a mutual engagement. But she was still younger, so not only noticing  but _having an opinion_ on her corset and short tutu wasn’t advised.

“I’m...not going to the party. My friends are there. I think. But I’m not going.”

“Why not?”

Too late, but he thought it would’ve perhaps been better to accept that she wasn’t going rather than inquire about the reason.

“Because I’d rather be here.”

She was looking at him again, talking to him again, in that way, like this was an entirely different situation. 

Bonnie decided that it was time to put all that money she’d spent to use. New scenery. She was the change. 

“What do you think of my costume?” She backed up far enough for him to be able to see all of her. She took off her sweater and threw it on the chair that had the yellow box full of her grandmother’s things. She spun slowly, gave him no choice but to look at what she was showing off.

“I like it."

“What do you like about it? I’ll turn again.” And she did. Her hair, in loose waves, fanned out and landed on her bare right shoulder.

He stared at her and didn’t move a muscle. Nary a facial tick disturbed his composed features.

“Would you like me to turn again?”

Yes, she exuded an authority that was not to be taken lightly. “I don’t think anything about your costume.”

“That’s impossible.”

He smiled. “Bonnie, I’m not sure what you think this is---”

“You’re as sure as when you asked me if I was an alumni.”

He was now attempting to talk to her based on status, and it sounded to his own ears like he was engaging her in that flirting match.

She put her hands on her hips and pointed her right toes to the ground, jutting her right knee forward.

He didn’t look down.

“Shane?”

“I can help you carry the box to your car, if you’d like.”

“Not yet.” Bonnie walked up to him, and she got as close as she could get. His legs were far enough apart that she could stand between them, and she wrapped her arms around his neck. “I think the party will be going on for about two, three more hours.”

His mouth fell open and his eyebrows almost went to the middle of his forehead before he caught control of them. “Bonnie.”

“Shane?” She stroke the hair at the nape of his neck, caught it in a strong grip, and leaned towards his mouth.

“ _No_.” He removed her hands from his hair and neck and held them in front of him.

“What’s the matter?” 

She looked like she couldn’t fathom why he was stopping her.

“This is wrong.”

“Wrong?”

“ _This can’t happen._ ” 

“I’m eighteen, if that’s what you’re worried about.”

“That’s only part of the problem. I’m ten years your senior.”

She leaned her pelvis into the desk, the opposite of what he wanted to happen.

“I’m a professor. _Here_. I work here.”

“And I don’t go here. I’m not starting Whitmore until _next_ fall. By then, we won’t even remember each other.” Unless, like she was planning to, she majored in Anthropology, meaning she’ll have to take Intro to Occult Studies, meaning she might choose him as her professor. 

“Bonnie---”

“And I don’t plan on telling my friends, if you’re worried about that too. This is for me.”

“Bonnie---”

“ _Shane._ ” She cut out the banter and merriment. She was done ignoring that what he was saying was ‘No.‘ 

Her expression became cloudy. It was the same grimness he’d noticed on the stairs. He had wanted to ask her about it before, but he’d forgotten when she’d asked him about his travels, and then her eyes had brightened up. Now they were doleful.

“You know how hard it can be....to practice.” She shrugged. “It’s....dangerous.” She chuckled as she remembered what her grandmother had told her more than a year ago  now, about how dangerous practicing magic was. “And when you push too far....there are consequences. I’m not practicing right now. I can’t...practice right now. I went over my boundaries, and....” She shrugged. Her eyes were watery, but she still put on a smile. 

Shane swallowed. He had boxed her: ten years his junior, a student, younger, and she had just erupted out of it. He remembered reading and rereading one of her tweets in an attempt to unveil her secrets, as if he could get to know her by reading her words. What she’d just said was everything he’d hoped for when he’d first reached out to her. What she’d just said fell in line with her walk, her talk, her presence, and her authority. Oh, she was still young. But she was a _witch_. She couldn’t practice, because she’d pushed through her boundaries, because she hadn’t recognized her boundaries in a way, which meant she did not _play_ at witchcraft.

He hadn’t played at it either. Not many witches did. But due to her age, he had wanted to be sure. And what she’d just revealed told him that he hadn’t miscalculated. He rarely did.  

“That’s why I wanted a change of scenery. And I wanted you to be....part of that,” Bonnie said. She chuckled. The bubble had popped. At least she’d flirted. At least she’d done that. “I’m sorry,” she apologized and stepped back. “I’m really sorry. Forget this happened,” she said with a soft decisiveness and walked to the box and grabbed her sweater.

He didn't want her to leave with the feeling that she hadn't gotten what she wanted. He didn't want her to be disappointed. He felt a desire to help her get what she wanted so that she would look as happy as she had been just three minutes ago.

The thing was that what she wanted was _sex_. Maybe he was jumping the gun in thinking that she somehow wanted to sleep with him. Maybe she just wanted a kiss. But the mere existence of the possibility that he was jumping any gun at all pointed to the actual problem:

He felt for her what she felt for him. She didn't know much about what kind of person he was, and neither did he her, so there was only one _feeling_ that could exist at this particular point. And he didn't want to label it. He wasn't immune to the shame that was supposed to come with wanting a person ten years one's junior let alone the many years that _really_ separated them, no matter what she wanted or how many attractive physical traits she possessed.

There was a block in his mind. 

 A surmountable block. 

"I like the length," he said after she put her sweater on. He tightened and released his mouth, for he had just made a decision that left part of his future uncertain. He'd made the decision of an imbecile. 

Bonnie stopped adjusting her sweater and turned.

"I like how short it is," he said, his voice raspy.

He remained immobile on the desk, but Bonnie perceived something different in his eyes. He was waiting. For her, for what she would do. She didn't think he was a flip-flopper. There would be no more refusal. He had made a decision, the one she wanted, and she was glad. 

She took off the sweater and deposited it on the box. "What else?" She walked the distance to where she'd spun to display herself.

"The pantyhose." After noticing where her white-accented tutu stopped, the next detail he'd appreciated upon seeing her on the stairs had been her pantyhose-covered legs.

"And that's it?"

"That's enough," he reassured her. Whatever happened, that pantyhose would remain on her legs. He wasn't above insisting. Maybe the tutu would stay on, too. 

It was stupefying just how surmountable that mental block was. 

"Who are you supposed to be?" By the superficial gash on her throat, he gathered she was a victim.

Bonnie smirked and took measured steps toward him, the better to show off the pantyhose he liked. She wrapped her arms around his neck. When she spoke, there was no mistaking the sultry tinge of her voice. There was no need to second-guess whether or not she was coming on to him. "I'm a prostitute." 

And she would never forget the effect those three words had on him, not when she fell asleep later that night, not the next day, or next week. She would never forget the effect that _she_ had on him: his eyes widened, those eyes set in that face and decorated by those eyebrows. His nostrils flared. His adam's apple bobbed as he swallowed what she'd just said. His beautiful lips then parted, and his hands very firmly gripped her hips. 

His interest was naked in front of her. Her lips pulled at the corners, and she leaned in to kiss him. Her movements were slow, which he liked. He didn't sit there and wait, however. His head was done in by her daring words. He leaned forward when she paused for too long and tilted up for her kiss. 

They kissed as if to make up for the amount of uncertainty that had been present in their numerous exchanges. Their kiss was sure and exact. His lips were firm against hers. She was transparent in her search for his tongue. 

The hand that he had deftly maneuvered earlier to impart his knowledge of the occult, lithe fingers pointing, counting, and accentuating, the same hand meticulously went down and up her left leg. The mesh fabric of the pantyhose was rough against his fingers. The stringy entanglements conjured images of silk pantyhose, ripped pantyhose, pantyhose wet with her lubricant, pantyhose sticky with his come, and she wore them all. 

Hands that were intimate with the pages of timeworn grimoires, that smoothed over the cursive writings of veteran witch lines, that flexed and stretched during spells as if to reach for a tangible Nature, those hands brushed his well-kept goatee. Those hands trailed beneath his chin down to his neck. She learned the thickness of his neck, the hardness of it, and she wondered if the rest of him felt the same. 

She did her curiosity justice and buried her fingers beneath his layered collars and touched warm skin.

Shane was bolder with his hand, dipping it between Bonnie's legs, just below her ass cheeks, and he, too, encountered warmth. 

Bonnie took off his jacket and wasted no time in getting rid of his red flannel shirt and tight white ribbed tank top after that. She wanted to touch his hard body. Kissing and touching Shane felt different, different from kissing and touching Jeremy. He felt older, and that excited her.

"Hold on," he instructed hoarsely, and she was blessed with the chance to watch his naked back on display when he walked to the door to lock it. The muscles flexed, which brought her gaze down to his hips and his ass. She wanted to grope it all. And the blessings kept coming when he turned around and walked back to her. 

It was the most beautiful sight she had ever seen at Whitmore College.

***

A couple of buildings away, Elena entered the fraternity house. She was greeted by the burly student that had given Bonnie the flyer, and after exchanging quick pleasantries, she started to look for Caroline. She was starving.

Caroline stood close to the radio and tall speakers. She'd been witness to the party-throwers scrambling to fix some wires after the music had stopped unexpectedly. 

Caroline was enjoying herself enough, even though she hadn't danced the twenty minutes she'd been there. She still wasn't impressed by the theme that the frat brothers had chosen.

"Hey! Caroline! Caroline!"

She was surprised to see Elena. "Hi."

Elena let that moment pass, that moment when two people who had argued saw each other again and were recognizant of the fact that they were both calmer.

"What are you doing here?!"

Instead of answering, Elena grabbed Caroline's hand and led her away from the speakers. She chose to talk by the door. It was still loud, but here she could use her super hearing to talk to Caroline without worrying about blowing out her newly enhanced eardrums.

"I didn't expect you to come," Caroline said quietly.

Elena heard her without a problem. "I wasn't going to. But I don't want the trip to be a waste either. You're right: I can't feed on Matt forever and....I have to let go of that crutch." Especially since she'd come close to killing that crutch.

Caroline sighed. "I know I was overbearing. I just...I have my own issues going on."

"Issues that have to do with me?"

"Yes," she said without hesitation."You and Bonnie and Matt and how you guys.....are." She couldn't imagine knowing about Bonnie unintentionally hurting her grandmother for her sake only for her to....go about her day like normal. She hadn't even been able to handle Bonnie distrusting her when she'd first become a vampire. "She's been hurting, and I know you're busy, but when are you ever not, you know? It just pisses me off how you guys are just....friends. I don't know." She had a lot more to say. She was making herself resentful.

"I know that Bonnie's.....hurt. I know things aren't easy for her."

"Did you know that before, or are you just thinking about it now?"

Elena held her breath and said, "I didn't think about it before. I couldn't---" She cut herself off before she went on to talk about what a hard time she'd been having.

Caroline nodded and looked away. She wasn't surprised. She was disappointed. Elena didn't look as affected by this as she had hoped. But then, how affected was Bonnie really? Maybe the petite girl’s silence on the subject, however frustrating, was kind of a clue? When Bonnie had yelled at Elena earlier, she had said that only some of her issues had anything to do with Elena.

What Caroline knew was that she would rather Bonnie, she would rather anyone, explicitly reject her or argue with her than _tolerate_ her presence. Maybe she was the one who needed to adjust to the new way of things. Let go of the old and deal with the new. Matt's headspace was still a mystery, however.

"I want her to be happy. I want her to get her magic back and to feel better. I want her to be just as happy as you do." Elena didn't go any further in attempting to talk about Bonnie. She knew her answer wasn't what Caroline wanted to hear, but she had high hopes that Caroline wouldn't press the issue. She felt that this conversation was one that should be taking place between her and Bonnie, not her and Caroline.

She also felt a ton of relief with the knowledge that that conversation would most likely never take place between her and Bonnie, due to Bonnie's preference for avoidance. She had no idea what she would say and she had no idea what Bonnie would say, if they ever talked. 

No she didn't think about it often, but spending the day pestered by Caroline with Bonnie's silent agreement was making her think about her friendship with Bonnie. She still loved her, but she was fine with admitting that there was a gap between them. She would've been uncomfortable if there wasn't a gap after everything that had happened. Faced with Caroline's disapproval, she knew she was failing Bonnie. And maybe it was unfair of her to feel that Bonnie should've fought for their closeness instead of hiding away and letting it disintegrate. But she wasn't alone in letting their friendship morph into....this. Bonnie had played a part.

She did want Bonnie to be happy, but she wasn't willing to do....anything to help. She was aware (or was it cowardly?) enough to consider that perhaps Bonnie's happiness needed to exclude as much of her as possible.

She was fine with failing in this regard. She was failing too many expectations to attempt to fix any of them. Just the thought of trying to regain her reputations oppressed her. At least her friendship with Bonnie still existed, in a certain capacity. At least they had _some_ kind of link.

She would rather spend her energy on her relationships with the Salvatores. That was easy. Hurting them....well hurting them didn't hurt her, she realized. She didn't like to see either of them sad, but their sadness.....there was no such thing as disappointing them, in her eyes. She couldn't imagine feeling like a failure with regards to them. With them, she couldn’t fail. With them, she could always come back. She would always have a second chance, a third chance, a fourth....her chances were infinite. They can't make her feel what Caroline and Bonnie made her feel today.

Jeremy was the only other person with whom she tried.....to a point.

"I'm ready to train. Or whatever." She chuckled.

***

Back in Shane's office, it was as if the click of the lock had secured away every last one of his apprehensions. He kissed Bonnie and groped her body in a way that was so methodical that she was almost overwhelmed.

Every time she kissed him with all of the urgency she felt, she eventually found herself languorously kissing him. Every time she sped it up, he slowed it down. 

They'd moved to the side of his desk that barricaded his chair and had thrown his notebooks and papers on the floor as carefully as they could, and he'd rotated the screen of his desktop so that she would have more space. His shoes and socks were off and she'd unbuckled and unzipped him. There was a big hole in the crotch of her pantyhose. Ripping the pantyhose had ripped off a section of Shane’s heart, but he'd needed to get to her underwear to push it aside. She still wore her tutu, at least.

Bonnie was sitting almost in the middle of the desk, and she leaned on her hands and her legs were spread. Shane loomed over her to kiss her neck, her lips, and as much of her chest as he could reach in her corset. He held her underwear to the side with one hand and used the thumb and index finger of his other hand stroke the flesh that covered her clit. 

That was all he'd been doing for....she had no idea how much time had passed. She hoped he was keeping track. She thought about cutting him off to remind him that she was here with people and they might come looking for her (was her phone even still on her?), but he was _all over her_. He was indeed a good kisser. And there was the promise of an orgasm. 

For the past....however long it's been....that was all he'd given her: the promise of an orgasm. Every time her clit started to be overwhelmed by his strokes, he abandoned it and slipped two fingers inside of her, just on the inside of her pussy, and stroke her there. She had no idea what it was that he was stroking, what that part of her vagina was called, but she knew it made her very wet.

She was impatient. At the very least, she wasn’t attuned to the pleasures that could be had by waiting, by teasing an orgasm, by denying it, by lingering in the disarray of feelings that sprouted when the body existed in the unique state that wasn’t quite on the threshold of an orgasm, when the body was aroused enough for the mind to run wild with raunchy scenarios. In this particular state of existence, the only thing that mattered to the mind was fantasizing about things salacious enough to keep the body aroused and make the orgasm worth every tremor. 

Bonnie didn’t seem used to making regular practice of this, and Shane liked that. He liked her impatience. He liked her desire to speed things up, to get herself off, perhaps not quickly, but definitely not as slow as he was taking it. It would make her eventual orgasm that much better for her and, as a result, for him.

Bonnie’s mind was all over the place. She fantasized without shame. Shane was kissing her neck and she was imagining channeling his dick until he begged her to stop. She saw him bending her over the desk and fucking her until someone kicked the door down. She imagined riding him on the desk, bouncing on his dick on the desk, she imagined sucking his dick in the middle of the stuffed office. He would eat her out so thoroughly that the skies would darken over the campus, and she would come so hard that the town would experience a torrential downpour. 

He resumed stroking her clit, and she kissed his lips, and her mind conjured a scenario where she linked him to her with a lust spell so that when he stroke her clit or ate her pussy, he felt the sensation all over his body. The endorphins released in her mind were in his mind. But he could only be lustful. Even when she came, he would remain in a state of arousal, for her completion was hers and hers alone. And maybe she’d leave him like that, leave the spell active, for three days. To start. 

She was thankfully yanked out of her reverie. One more fantasy, and she was going to insist that he make her come.

She breathed on his ear as she bit and dragged on it, and she was scooting closer and closer to the edge of the desk, so Shane decided it was time for her to come. He brought her off gradually, built on her orgasm. He started by stroking her clit at the same pace he’d been using until she came.  

Bonnie immediately started to tense into him. Her clit suddenly felt incredibly sensitive. He kept rubbing and she wanted to throw her head back and revel in it, and she wanted to ask him to stop and give her a break. She came a second time, and she cursed on trembling breath. She looked at him, and whatever her face looked like, it opened the floodgates. His eyes became incredibly penetrative and interested, and he rubbed her clit faster. He took every orgasm as a cue to stroke her clit faster than before.

“ _Shit_ ,” Bonnie moaned between her teeth. She couldn’t stop looking at him. She wanted him to watch her come, and the way he was looking at her turned her own. She came again, and she scooted closer to him. He let go of her panties and held on one of her legs up. “Fuck.” She threw her head back and knocked her knees together when she came again. His grasp on her clit was unyielding, a strong, rough pressure point that was driving her crazy. She was caught between his index finger and thumb, and she cursed when she came again. “ _Damn it_.” Her face was a slow-moving picture of pleasure-induced grimaces. “Fuck,” she exhaled. “Shit!” She buckled and lay on the desk.

“Shhh.”

The light from the desk lamp was within her eyesight, and she hadn’t moved it an inch so she could get it out of her line of sight when she was coming again. She almost knocked the lamp over. She tightened into her abdomen. “Ugh,” she exhaled. The time between her orgasms grew shorter. One of her legs was immobile in Shane’s hand. She made plenty use of the other one. She bent it and bit her knee. “What?” she asked. She was sure he’d spoken.

“I said _keep it like that_.” 

His voice was tight, but she had a feeling it wasn’t because he needed to come. It was because he liked what he saw. So she kept her knee bent, and he held her other leg at an angle so that she was spread before him, and he kept working her clit, and it was getting harder for her to breathe. She could see herself dying this way. And another thing she would not forget about this night was how close he got her to that point, to death. He was relentless on her clit. “ _Yes_ , _yes_ , _yes_.” She stretched her leg to the side to release the pressure on her lower stomach, and he gladly accommodated her by opening the leg he held to the other side so that she was spread eagle. “Oh _yes_. _Yeeeesss._ ”

“Shhh.”

“I can’t,” she whined.

“You have to keep your voice down,” he hissed. He was sure most of his colleagues were gone. Most of them. And there were the janitors to think about.

“ _I can’t,_ ” Bonnie whispered. There was a pressure building in her stomach and it was pushing towards her vagina.

Shane grinned. He didn’t actually want her to be quiet. Of course her being quiet was the best option for both of them, especially for him, but he was enamored by her come faces and by the sounds she was making. The more she fell apart the better, because she looked amazing dissolving in ecstasy. 

He let go of her leg and she immediately pulled both legs to her chest. He slipped two fingers inside her and gave her clit a reprieve. He stroke the part that made her wet. Soon, he maneuvered a third finger into her, and her mouth parted in acknowledgement. When she looked at him, he slipped his fingers further inside her pussy so that he could reach her G-spot. 

“Yeah,” Bonnie sighed. When he enclosed her clit between his index and thumb, she put her arms over her face in preparation. He didn’t do what she expected. He kept stroking her G-spot faster and faster while his fingers stayed still on her clit. She realized what he was going to do, hoped that that was what he was going to do, and wondered if she would be able to handle it. He smiled at her, and she chuckled. 

She stared at the ceiling and realized for the first time that his office had no artificial lighting. The room was illuminated by lamps. The lamp on his desk, a tall one in a corner behind them, two on a desk next to her, and she quickly wondered why that was.

His three fingers were snug in her pussy, and she was soon on the cusp of an orgasm. She raised herself on her elbows when he started stroking her clit, fast, to match the rhythm he had set in her cunt. “Shit, Shane,” she breathed. “Ah!”

 _“Shhh.”_  

The stern look on his face pushed her over the edge. She came until she started to squirt, and it was messy. She closed her eyes and pressed her teeth together in an effort not to yell. She sprayed his wrist first, and she kept coming and squirting, and she reached his elbow.

“Hold your legs,” he said desperately.

“Fuck!” she cried out as she hooked her hands behind her knees and spread herself for him to see. She was convulsing on the desk, and she vacillated between opening her eyes and closing them.

Suddenly, his fingers were out of her and away from her clit, and her cunt was seized in his mouth. 

She held his head in place. “Mmmm.” It was a nice reprieve. He sucked around her clit.

Shane pulled the chair closer with his leg and sat. He held her thighs apart and laved her vulva, soaking up her come with his tongue. He slowly penetrated her with it and licked around.

“Oh my God,” Bonnie breathed and raised her head so she could see between her legs. “Wow. Wow.” She stroke his hair, petted him, as he fucked her slowly with his tongue. “Oh yeah.” She swallowed hard. “Keep doing that.” And he did.

He ate her out as good as he’d fingered her.

“Stop, stop, stop.” And this was before she’d even come by way of his mouth. It felt like too much. She sat up on the desk, and her thighs trembled. Her abdomen felt like she’d been doing sit-ups. The muscles were sore.

He kissed her slow, and she caught her breath in his mouth. She trailed her hands on his torso, feeling every ridge and plane, and she moaned loudly in his mouth. She wanted to tell him that he was amazing. She kissed his goatee: along both sides of his jaw, his chin, and under his nose, and he caressed her thigh all the while.  

“Ready?” he asked.

She gave him a long close-mouthed kiss. “Yeah.” She smiled and bit her lip.

She lay on the desk, and he sat down. He suckled her clit until she started coming, and he didn’t stop, and she squirted in his mouth, and he only stopped enough to swallow most of it, and she pulled at his hair, and screamed in her throat, and when that happened there wasn’t a fear deep enough to counter the reaction of her body in deep carnal bliss. 

The wet sound of his mouth on her sodden pussy reached her ears, and she had completely let go. Nothing mattered except for what was happening at that moment. She was at his mercy. She was at the mercy of her body. So when his mouth on her engorged clit sent her over the edge this time, her power flowed out of her body. She came, locked his head between her thighs, fisted as much of his hair as she could get in both hands, and she arched into him. 

Everything in the room flew away from her, from them. The computer, the lamp next to her head, the box full of her grandmother’s things, the chair that held it, all of the lamps, the jade bonsai plant that had grown an extra two inches over the course of her orgasms, all of the _stuff_ in his cozy office, the notebooks and papers they had carefully thrown on the floor, they all flew to the side of the room where her head pointed. 

“Keep _going_!!!” 

Shane got off the chair and knocked it over in the process. He’d heard the sound of things crashing, but he wasn’t interested in checking when she was begging him to extend her orgasm. He unlocked her legs to free his head, never taking his lips off her clit. The wet suction was manna for his dick.

Bonnie started to pull at his hair because she was on the verge of coming again. She felt her pussy get wetter. And when she did come, when she spilled into his mouth, her cunt clenching, every bulb in the room shattered. 

***

Shane wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. There was too much of her to erase completely, so he licked his lips regularly. He wanted more of her. 

He’d stopped as soon as he’d heard glasses shattering. His gut had constricted because he’d been sure she’d blown out one, if not all, of his windows. It had taken him a second to reorient himself from the smell, taste, and sight of her pussy, and then he’d realized they were in complete darkness.

“Bonnie?”

“Mmm-hmm. What?”

He smiled. He couldn’t tell from her slow speech if her eyes were open or closed.

“There’s no light.”

“Mmm.”

He smiled again. He needed to make sure no one was coming, so he listened for any movement outside of his door. He looked under it, and the sliver of light shown through uninterrupted. There was no one standing on the other side of the door with their ear pressed against it. As an extra precaution, he waked to the door. His erection rubbed against his pants. He hoped he wouldn’t scar his feet by stepping on a shard of glass, and he unlocked and slowly opened the door.

Bonnie saw that the lights were out in the room were out, but unless he started panicking she wasn’t going to worry. Her body was a comfortable heavy. She felt like she could continue to come, as long as he was merciless about it. “That was amazing,” she said in her daze.

“Yeah?” He was back in front of her and stroking her swaying thighs.

“Mmm-hmm. You know your stuff.”

He chuckled. “Thank you.” He gently stroke her pussy below her clit with his knuckles.

 “Mmm." 

“I thought you said you couldn’t practice. Or did you say that to try and seduce me?”

“I can’t practice,” she murmured. “That was an involuntary reaction. And you know that. And you just want your ego flattered.”

He smiled even though she couldn’t see him. He left her pussy alone and lifted her left leg onto his shoulder. He ran his hand over her pantyhose, feeling every bumpy patch on the material. “That’s not it, I swear. I’ve got a pretty healthy ego.” 

“Just think.” She took her leg back and hoisted herself upright. “You would’ve missed out on all of this, on all of me, if you hadn’t changed your mind.”

He heard the smirk in her voice. She had a pretty healthy ego, too.

Bonnie pulled on his neck and brought him down for a kiss. His pants were already undone, so she easily slipped her hand inside. He subtly thrusted his hips towards her. His cock twitched when she grabbed the thick of it.

The thought of coming again didn’t do much for Bonnie, though she was willing to try. It was possible that the full minute during which his mouth and hands had been away from her vulva messed up her memory of what it felt like to have him all over her. But she would rather jerk him off than have him inside her.

She pushed his pants and boxers past his ass. She stilled her hand when she felt the wetness on the head of his dick. She closed her fist around it to familiarize herself with the consistency and then she started stroking him, slowly. She was aware of every inch her fist swallowed on its way to his shaft.

She pumped his cock and made a half-circle with her long fingers each time she got close to the head. 

He stopped kissing her in order to instruct her to go a little faster, and then he sucked on her bottom lip. He licked the curve of it and nibbled, and he was rewarded when she bit on his bottom lip and pulled until it slipped out of her teeth, and then she kissed him. He placed his hands under her knees and pulled her closer, to the edge of the desk. He hooked his fingers into the decorative space in her pantyhose and struggled to remind himself not to rip the thing even more than he already has.

His breaths were hard and shallow, and Bonnie knew that’s what she’d sounded like when she’d been laid out on the desk. She used one of her hands to play with his balls. She felt the weight of them, the firmness they’d gained in the process of making her come. They were just a little bit fuzzy with hair, and she wondered if that was how he usually kept them. When she gave them an experimental squeeze, he stiffened nervously and told her to be careful. She chuckled.

“You think that’s funny. You’re laughing,” he commented and framed her face with his hands. The moon afforded them some light, but he wished they had the bulbs. He wanted to see her face as it was right now instead of what he remembered from minutes ago.

“I...I didn’t mean to laugh. I’m not going to break you. I _promise_ ,” she murmured slowly against his lips.

It made him want her try and break him just a little bit. He thought she was going to do just that when she squeezed his balls slightly harder than before, and he gasped and buried his nose in the crook of her neck.

“Are you okay?” Bonnie asked and hoped she hadn’t overdone it.

“I’m fine,” he strained. “Do it again.” He felt her chin move on his shoulder when she smiled. So she kept stroking him and squeezing his balls, each time coming closer and closer to making it painful, and he bit her neck, and her ear, and her shoulder blade. He was happy when she trembled.

Bonnie swiped the pre come he expelled and used it to add lube to his length. He started sucking the spot where her pulse beat, and she hoped he left a hickey.

Hours of meditation every day for a great number of years allowed him considerate lasting power, but all Shane wanted as the wet sound of Bonnie’s thin hand on his slick cock invaded his ears was to come on her pantyhose.

He waited for her to bring him to the brink, his dick comfortably incased in her hands, and he nuzzled and nibbled her neck. And when she did get him there, when her hand on his dick and her hand on his balls promised to give him release as he hadn’t known it for a while, when he thought about the smile that would be on her lips, and she would smile, when he came all over her hand, shuddering and coiling into her, he wanted to abandon his fantasy. Just two more minutes and he would know what an orgasm at her hands felt like.

But hours of meditation every day for a great number of years had cultivated in him considerate lasting power.

So he shifted to the side, towards her right leg, and he covered her hand with his. He helped her stroke him, and then he placed his hand under hers. He was pleased when she moved her hand to cover his. He was free to rub himself against the inside of her knee.

He sighed when his dick connected to the ridged material of her fishnet pantyhose. The friction caused a cold wave to roll through his body from the middle of his head to the center of his feet.

“What are you doing?” Bonnie asked with calculated measure. She leaned on her palms and deliberately crossed her legs. She smiled when he found her knee in the dark.

“I love your pantyhose,” he said roughly.

“You weren’t kidding.” She lifted her right leg, the one he was rubbing himself against, until he was rubbing up and down the side of her shin. He touched his forehead to hers, and she moaned. “Enjoying yourself?”

“Yes.”

She bobbed her leg up and down against his dick and he straightened. Shane closed his eyes and his mouth fell open. A reverent curse escaped his lips. He stepped away and pulled her off the desk. She moaned, and he could hear the smile. “What is it?” he asked as he turned her around and splayed his hands on her stomach.

“Nothing,” she flirted. “The prostitute costume was a good idea, wasn’t it?” She wasn’t expecting an answer different from the one he uttered.

“Yes.” His teeth were clenched but that didn’t deter his smirk.

“Tell me I’m a good prostitute.” She wanted him to think about what he was doing. She wanted him to remember his earlier hesitation, his earlier hangups. She wanted him to think about how he wanted her so much that he had pushed past his reservations.

She chuckled when, instead of answering her, he lifted her right knee onto the desk and pushed her chest towards the desk. He lifted her tutu and started rubbing his dick on her pantyhose-covered ass.

“I asked you a question,” she said sternly. She supported herself on her hands so that her back arched and her ass cheeks really stuck out.

“You didn’t ask me a question,” he responded feverishly. He slid his other hand under her pantyhose and moved her underwear into the middle of her ass and then he pulled on the waist as if to fashion it into a thong.

Bonnie’s gasp was long and deep. He pulled just enough for her to feel it, not hard enough to be uncomfortable, hard enough for the front of the panties to mold to her pussy. “Okay,” she sighed contentedly and leaned her ass back into him. “I didn’t ask a question. But I want a response. You remember what I said.” She wanted him to know that she was not going to repeat herself. 

Shane let go of his dick and squeezed her lifted thigh as he humped her ass. When he swallowed, his throat was uncomfortably dry. “You’re a good prostitute,” he said, and his heart beat faster.

He let go of her thigh and grabbed his dick again. He started jacking off and pulled on her underwear. He jerked his cock faster when she lifted her ass in response. 

He let her underwear go and palmed her ass and felt the fishnet under his hand. He looked down and saw what the moon allowed.

Bonnie closed her eyes and focused on his labored breathing. She was getting it. She had gotten her change of scenery. She had gotten the most beautiful sight at Whitmore College.

Shane started cursing, and she felt his warm spunk streak across her ass. He grunted, and she turned her head and she wished she could see him. The tightening of his hand on her thigh was enough. He bumped against the desk as he jerked towards her. His breath came out in harsh puffs, and her mind saw his body tremble as he emptied the last bit of his semen on her ass.

She wished she could see what her ass looked like. He’d come a lot; she felt medium puddles of it on her ass. 

Shane exhaled loudly.

Bonnie stood on both legs and felt the come run down her butt. Some trailed on down to her thighs and some dripped on the floor. She smiled because it felt a little weird. She turned to Shane and asked, “Happy?”

“Yes.” And he kissed her.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next (and last) chapter: Elena's on a blood high and she smells something a little....peculiar....on Bonnie. Whoops! Dodge and lie, Bonnie, dodge and lie!


	6. Chapter 6

“I really hope I didn’t break your computer.” Bonnie joined Shane in righting the fallen lamps, papers and boxes in the office. He had gotten dressed and stepped out to get paper towels from the nearest bathroom and to wash his hands, and when he came back she had discreetly wiped herself and wiped his come from her butt and legs. She had stepped out afterward to wash her own hands, the light in the hallway hurting her eyes only for a brief second. 

“I think it’s fine.” The computer had been the first thing he’d checked after he’d produced two flashlights.

“How are you going to explain this?”

“A break-in? Vandalism? But it would cost the college to find out who it was. I’m pretty sure we can fix everything so there won’t be any questions. It’s a good thing I don’t share this office. And it’s a good thing you didn’t blow out my windows.” He picked up the jade bonsai and hoped it wasn’t damaged beyond repair. He was too addled from his time with Bonnie to immediately notice that it had gotten larger.

Bonnie righted the last chair, the one that had held her box. During her time in the bathroom, she had lifted her tutu and found the hole Shane had ripped into her pantyhose. She had smoothed down all of the frizz in her hair and examined her face in the mirror. Her eyes had looked big, not because she’d done anything to them. They’d been wide with excitement. And she’d been smiling. That had been the last thing to come to her attention. She had tried to stop smiling, but smiling had felt much better.

“Have you seen my phone?” She asked.

“Yeah, it’s over here.” Shane picked it up with Sheila’s copy of _Cujo_ and handed both to Bonnie.

Bonnie sighed in relief when he gave it to her. She squeezed the phone in her hand to reassure herself that it was really there. When she looked up, Shane was focused on her. He sported a small smile, and she kissed him and hoped it was okay. She gripped the hem of his flannel shirt when he leaned into the kiss.

“That offer to walk you to your car still stands.”

“Good.” She smiled. 

They both gave the office a once-over, and then Shane followed her to her car, her box in his arms. 

Bonnie had forgotten all about Caroline and Elena until she got to the car. She had been busy focusing on walking in front of Shane, because she knew he was staring at her legs. 

“I guess they went to the party. Oh... _crap_.” 

“What?”

“They have the keys.”

“Do you want me to wait with you, or....?”

“No, I’ll go find them. It’s fine,” she said and took the box from him.

“You’re sure?”

“Yeah.” The parking lot was pretty deserted. She figured she could leave the box in the shadow of the car and go off to find Elena and Caroline.

“Okay.”

A moment of silence passed where he observed her, and she appreciated the fact that he wasn’t acting awkward about what happened.

“Listen, about your, uh, _practicing_.”

She hiked her brows.

“Well, there are many ways to practice magic, Bonnie. If you’re interested, I can teach you. Work with you.”

“Are you a witc---”

“No,” he lied. “I’m just a guy who’s seen a lot of things, and I’m willing to pass some of them along.”

She thought about the adventures he’s had, the ones that had allowed him to accrue so many of the things she’d seen in his office. She smiled. She wanted to say yes. She already said yes in her head. But he had just eaten her out until she’d turned his office upside down, literally. She would probably agree to anything he suggested, so with that in mind, she kept her agreement to herself. 

“I’ll think about it,” she said instead.

He nodded. “And please---”

“I will keep what happened tonight to myself. I told you,” she said softly. 

“Have a safe trip back. And Happy Halloween.”

“Thanks.” She got the view that she had given him on their way to the car when he turned to leave. She watched him walk away, and she smiled wide when he turned once to look back at her.

Once he was out of sight, she sagged against the car and exhaled. “Wow. Wow!” She squealed and laughed. After setting the box by the front left tire, she ventured out to find Elena and Caroline.

***

Bonnie was hit with a wave of body heat when she entered the frat house. It was so strong that she grimaced. “Ew. 

The party was in full swing, and people were still streaming in. No one was leaving. She started bobbing up and down, repeatedly standing on her toes to search for a particular head of blonde hair or a particular head of brunette hair and then righting herself to walk around.

She entered into what she surmised was the living room and found Elena half-encircled by a small crowd of people. Her arms were in the air, her eyes were closed, her head lulled from side to side as she felt the music.....and her mouth was bloody red. Bonnie at first thought it was paint, but, just like she’d had to ignore her automatic perception a year ago when her grandmother had killed and revived the dahlia flower, she casted away the safest explanation. Elena hadn’t smeared paint around her mouth. She’d been feeding on people. 

Keeping a sharp eye on Elena, she looked around for Caroline. She found the more seasoned vampire leaning on a wall, watching Elena and moving her head in tempo with the music.

“Hey!”

“Hi!” Caroline greeted.

“I guess the lesson worked?!” 

“Not well enough at first!” When Bonnie frowned, she clarified, “Don’t worry, I stopped her before she could do real damage! Where have you been?!” Caroline twisted her wrist around to look at her watch.

Before Bonnie could come up with an answer, Elena called her name.

“Bonnie!”

Bonnie turned to find Elena making a beeline to her. 

“Let’s dance!”

“No, I think we should leave!” she yelled as Elena pulled her towards the dance floor.

“One dance!”

It seemed as if the bass got louder as Calvin Harris’ _Feel So Close_ started playing on the party track.

Bonnie was about to refute again when she felt Caroline come up behind her. “Hey!”

“One dance!” Caroline parroted Elena. She hadn’t danced at all so far. She held Bonnie’s hips and firmly directed her to sway in tandem.

Elena held Bonnie’s hands and bounced up and down, a big and bloody smile on her face.

Bonnie rolled her eyes and smiled. “Fine,” she said in her normal decibel. 

The girls melded with the beat, and Elena calmed down enough to match Caroline and Bonnie’s rhythm. She turned around, and Bonnie was once again in the middle with Elena in the front and Caroline in the back.

Bonnie wound her hips to the beat while Elena’s tempo was slightly faster. Elena still held her hands, and they were up in the air, swaying to the new vampire’s tempo. 

Caroline chose the section of the beat that she wanted to follow and popped her hips accordingly and tried to not get thrown off by Bonnie’s slower wound. 

The three moved in a compact unit. If Elena moved forward, they all stepped up. If Caroline moved back, the other two followed. If Bonnie switched it up and moved a couple of steps to the left, Caroline and Elena caught on.

They danced the entire song. Bonnie had a moment of panic when Caroline’s hands snaked down her thighs. She was afraid that she’d find the tear, even though the blonde’s hands would have needed to move in the _opposite_ direction for her to find it. But Bonnie couldn’t be too careful. So to lessen the risk of Caroline finding out, she pushed her ass deeper into Caroline’s crotch and danced on her. 

Elena was in a sensory Shangri-La. Her nose was constantly filled with the metallic smell of blood, thanks to the mess on her mouth. Bonnie’s hands had slipped from hers, and the shorter brunette held her waist, which brought her attention to the feel of her corset against her skin, the scratch of the stockings against her thighs, and the sound of her heels hitting against the floor as she danced. 

Bonnie’s exhale and inhale reached Elena’s ears, and she pictured pearls of sweat pushing out of Bonnie’s pores. She took her friend’s hands and wrapped them all the way around her waist. Bonnie hugged her tight, and Elena let her head fall to one side of Bonnie’s head. Bonnie’s laughter rang sweetly in her ear. 

Earlier in the day, Bonnie had flinched when she’d touched her, and now Bonnie had her arms around her as if nothing had changed. As if there was no difference between the feel of their skins.

Her nose tickled when Caroline’s hair swished over it. She tuned out Bonnie’s laughter and honed in on Caroline’s hair rubbing against the latter’s own corset, and mashing with Bonnie’s hair, and cutting through the air, as Caroline swung her head.

She kept her attention focused on their little unit, though it was a struggle at times. She had snatched, eaten, and erased plenty, but the _smell_ of blood, the _taste_ of it, even if she didn’t swallow and just let it dribble down her mouth. The experience of sinking her teeth and drawing blood was enough.

She focused on Bonnie’s pulse, but couldn’t bring herself to wonder what her blood tasted like. It was a combination of her earlier spat with both Bonnie and Caroline as well as the knowledge of her involvement in Bonnie’s current struggle with her magic that kept her from salivating over the thought of Bonnie’s head hanging awkwardly to one side while life’s essence flowed out of her neck. Bonnie had given her enough. The thought of sucking blood from her, too, outright turned her off and made her queasy. 

She felt that Caroline would be proud of her reaction. 

Elena turned to face Bonnie, and the latter was indeed perspiring. Her edges were wet and sticking to her forehead. Bonnie’s eyes were crinkled, and her smile was big and toothy, and there was none of the tightlipped aloofness that she’d worn in front of Elena for the majority of the day. 

It made Elena feel good to see her like this. She grabbed Bonnie’s hands and shouted her a happy Halloween, and Bonnie responded in kind. 

Bonnie leaned back on Caroline the way Elena had been leaning on her, and Elena raised her and Bonnie’s hands and closed her eyes. When she inhaled, she smelled a mix of Bonnie’s body spray and sweat. She smiled. And when she inhaled again, she frowned. 

It had been a while since Elena had slept with someone, what with Stefan spending the summer with Klaus and the all the Ripper stuff, plus the werewolf poison that had kept her from going there with him recently. But she was positive she remembered the smell of sex. Granted, Bonnie didn’t smell like her or Stefan’s bedrooms, but she smelled _different_. She realized then that Bonnie also wasn’t just wearing _her_ body spray; someone’s cologne was all over her.

“Oh my God. Bonnie! BONNIE!” 

Bonnie opened her eyes.

“YOU HAD SEX?!”

“ _What?!_ ” Bonnie heard Elena’s shouting just fine. Her response was influenced by her shock.

Caroline stopped dancing and frowned.

“You had sex!” Elena repeated.

“I....Okay!” Bonnie smiled widely. “Time to go!” She grabbed Elena’s and Caroline’s hands and walked out of the party.

She let them go when she stepped outside of the frat house. The cool air was such a contrast to the hot atmosphere inside.

“Bonnie, wait,” Elena said as she descended the steps that led outside.

“What’s going on?” Caroline asked.

“Nothing,” Bonnie answered and kept walking.

“She had sex. I smell it on her. Smell her.”

Bonnie turned just in time to see Caroline close her eyes and inhale.

“Hey!”

“Oh my God.”

“Caroline!”

“ _What?!_ ”

“That is...nasty, and invasive, and _weird_. I can’t believe you did that.”

Caroline fought to hide her grin. She had a more important issue to address. 

“Why do you smell like sex?” Elena asked, like she was new.

Bonnie stared at them and they stared back at her, Caroline more expectant than Elena. She had not planned for this. She hadn’t even decided if she was going to allude to maybe making out with someone. She’d only known that she was not going to reveal Shane’s identity. 

She surprised herself by how calm she was when she answered. Besides, they would never suspect Shane.

“I...had...sex,” she said reluctantly. Caroline and Elena kept staring at her, and her heart started tripping. “Are you going to say something?”

“ _What do you mean?_ ” Caroline exploded. “Are you....this is why you were late?”

She raised her brows in acknowledgement.

“Wait a minute, Bonnie, this doesn’t sound like you,” Elena said.

“You have blood on your mouth,” Bonnie retorted pointedly.

Elena quickly covered her mouth and licked her lips.

“Oh my God. Oh my God. Bonnie.....did something happen?” Caroline reached out to touch her.

“No, no. Nothing happened. I mean something happened---”

“You were supposed to meet that professor----”

“It wasn’t him,” she said too quickly. “I got my stuff from him, and then I was on my way to meet you guys at the party, and I ran into this guy, and it’s not what you’re thinking. We talked and hung out for a bit, and....he flirted with me, and I flirted with him, and next thing you know.....”

“Next thing I _know_?” 

Caroline had grabbed her wrist at this point. 

“Elena’s right, this doesn’t sound like you,” Caroline continued.

“Wha---why, because I’ve never done this before?”

“Uh, yeah, that’s exactly what _doesn’t sound like you_ means.”

“Who is this guy?” Elena asked.

“What’s his name?” Caroline added.

“Damien.” She knew it would be a bad idea to say she didn’t know the non-existent man’s name, because Caroline looked like she was ready to march her up to every male student on campus and ask, ‘Is this him?’

The name reminded Caroline of the older Salvatore’s name, and she grimaced. 

“He was just a little bit taller than me, and...he was Black and bald, and you know I don’t usually like bald guys, but this one was really cute.”

“Did you like it?”

“ _Elena!_ ” Caroline chided. “Can you step out of your blood haze for one second and _focus_? This is not good.” Turning her attention to Bonnie, she said, “This is because of your grams, isn’t it? We should’ve never left you alone.”

“It’s not because of my grams!” Bonnie smiled in disbelief.

“Yes, it is. You’re going to regret this tomorrow. You’ve been depressed and reclusive, and, you know, if they wrote guide books on how to deal with your grandmother getting sent to hell after performing Dark magic, chapter three would be called _Don’t Have Sex With Strangers_. At least not until you’ve rescued your grandmother.”

“Okay, first of all?” Bonnie stepped up to Caroline and grabbed the emotional girl’s arms. “My grams isn’t in hell. I don’t know where she is, but...that can’t be where I’ve sent her. Second.....You’re right. This isn’t like me. I wouldn’t do this in a million years. _Unless_ I was depressed and reclusive.”

She stepped back and continued sincerely, “You guys, this is exactly what I needed. It’s exactly the out of the ordinary, unplanned, _not_ me.... _thing_ I needed to happen. And it _was_ good,” she said to Elena, who smiled tentatively. “And I’m _not_ going to regret it tomorrow,” she assured Caroline. “I don’t know much about this guy, but....I knew enough. Enough to want him. He made me feel good, and that’s all that matters to me.”

Most of Caroline’s worries were assuaged, but she was still skeptical. She couldn’t be sure Bonnie was in her right mind until the morning. She was probably still operating on a sex high.

“So, can we go now?” Bonnie asked.

Caroline and Elena nodded.

When they’d reached the car, Caroline stopped and made no move to get inside. “I can’t believe this,” she said quietly. Louder, she continued, “I was the responsible one.” She looked at Bonnie and Elena as if she was seeing them for the first time. “I was the responsible one. The designated.....whatever. You _slept_ with someone, and you partied on a blood high. And I....just watched.”

“Caroline, you have a boyfriend,” Bonnie pointed out as she accepted the car keys from Elena. “You can have sex whenever you want.”

“Not with godfather Klaus in the Lockwood mansion. Tyler doesn’t want to try anything because he’s not sure where Klaus’ ears are, which I _guess_ makes sense.”

Bonnie chuckled at her irritation. 

“So we didn’t ruin your trip?” Elena asked Bonnie softly.

Bonnie’s smile melted away and she watched Elena and Caroline, who waited with bated breath. No, she wouldn’t have chosen to  come with them, especially not with Elena, if she’d had more of a choice in the beginning, but this trip, even with their presence, had turned out far better than most Mystic Falls events. And she couldn’t deny that the three of them had shared some highs today.

“No,” she replied. “You didn’t. I got exactly what I wanted.”

Elena and Caroline smiled, and then all three piled into the car. Elena fell asleep very soon after she scratched off the coagulated blood around her mouth and licked it clean. 

Caroline watched her in the rearview mirror and shook her head, even though she wore a small smile.

“You’re sure everything went okay?” Bonnie asked.

“Yeah, no one got hurt. I’m sure she’ll feel great when she wakes up.” Caroline had never experienced a blood high, and even though Elena had looked like she was having the time of her life, it wasn’t something she cared to experience.

“Are _you_ sure you’re okay?” she asked Bonnie.

Bonnie knew she wasn’t asking about her sexual escapade. She was asking about Elena. Bonnie looked at the girl in question in the rearview mirror. “Yeah. Yeah, I’m fine.” She glanced at Caroline. “I promise. It’s just....not something I want to get into, you know?”

Caroline nodded her acceptance.

Bonnie eventually grew tired at the wheel, and she asked Caroline to take over driving. 

“You do know what’s happening, right? Post-coital bliss. You want to go to sleep. Too bad your lover boy’s isn’t here for you to cuddle.”

With a big smile on her face, Bonnie rolled her eyes. “And I’m never going to see him again,” she lied. She got out of the car to switch places with Caroline.

***

Bonnie made it to her house at a little after midnight. She _had_ fallen asleep. They’d taken Elena home first. Caroline’s prediction had started to play out, because Elena had woken up groggy and sluggish. She’d muttered a “Bye” to them both and then Caroline had walked her to her door.

Caroline had driven to her house, and then Bonnie had reclaimed the wheel. 

Her thighs were killing her. It was as if she’d biked for two hours straight the day before. 

She went straight to her bathroom and examined herself in the mirror. She looked more tired than earlier, but it wasn’t the same tiredness that had plagued her features since her punishment for doing Dark magic. 

She undressed and showered and savored every moment her thigh muscles screamed in memory of what she’d done earlier. 

In the privacy of her bedroom, she smelled her pantyhose to get a sense of what Elena and Caroline had picked up on her earlier, and she grimaced. And then smiled. The garment was ruined, but it was probably more valuable now than before. She considered mailing it to Shane since he loved it so much. Or maybe she’d leave it in his office on the first day of school next fall? No, she wouldn’t be able to wait that long.

Which reminded her of his offer to help her practice another kind of magic. She planned on accepting. Tomorrow. Practicing magic with him would give her plenty of opportunities to decide what to do with the pantyhose.

She grinned.

After flopping onto her bed, she whipped out her phone and opened her Twitter application.

**Bonnie Bennett**

_@itchnbitch_

            HAPPY HALLOWEEN! ;)

 

**The End**

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for reading!!! I hope you enjoyed the fic. The next one I'll be putting up is a Greta/Klaus Christmas fic that was requested.


End file.
